Sanctuary Hills

Sanctuary Hills (known simply as Sanctuary after the Great War) is a location in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, featured in Fallout 4. Here, the Sole Survivor and their family used to live in the House of Tomorrow before the Great War. After the war, it becomes one of the places the player character may choose to build a settlement in.

History
Built sometime in the 2070s, Sanctuary Hills was a friendly suburb of Concord, about a mile away. Located on a small island, and accessible only by wooden bridge, it consists of 14 prefabricated homes. Here, the Sole Survivor lived with their partner, child, and Codsworth, their robot butler.

On Saturday October 23rd, 2077, many families were just beginning their weekend mornings when their radios and television sets began reporting nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania at 9:42 am. At 9:47 am, Boston was hit by one atomic warhead, and Sanctuary Hills was hit by the atomic blast seconds later. Select citizens that had spaces reserved fled to Vault 111, just through the woods surrounding the community, to escape the atomic fire.

After the war, Sanctuary Hills was reduced to ruins, with its only residents being radroaches, bloatflies and Codsworth, as well as the Vault-Tec rep for a very short period of time. Fortunately, the town has some basis to become a good settlement, for very few critters pass by the area. There are occasional attacks from Raiders, or Super Mutants, and sometimes a Wasteland creature or some Gunners, who all have a chance to appear as you further develop the area. However, they remain at a low level even as your character levels up, which makes Sanctuary one of the easiest spots to defend.

Layout
Sanctuary Hills is accessible by a small footbridge from Vault 111 and a larger bridge which crosses the nearby river and leads, via road, to Concord. The village itself is built along a single road, which ends in a culdesac, and is populated by several houses which, by 2287, are in various states of decay.

There are multiple safes and lootable items to be found in Sanctuary (See also "Notable loot" below). Starting from the bridge leading out of the community, there is a floorsafe (advanced) hidden under a dresser in the blue house to the north of the road. In the yellow house at the curve of the street, there is a terminal (novice) and a safe (novice) with a makeshift bomb on top of it. In the blue house next to the yellow one is a Nuka Cherry in the fridge, a first aid box in the bathroom and a locked suitcase (novice) in the bedroom. In Sole Survivor's house, the player can find an issue of Grognak the Barbarian on the kitchen table and the "You're SPECIAL!" book under the dresser in Shaun's room. There is a safe (advanced) in the first house and a root cellar around the back of the second house down the street, which contains multiple items and a locked safe (advanced). The house south of the roundabout has a floorsafe hidden under the baby bed.

The root cellar is a shelter built under a neighboring property, two houses up from The House of Tomorrow in 2287. It appears that the owner was not able to reserve a space in a vault, and so made his own shelter. The door can be found at the back of the house, just before the culdesac in the northeast of Sanctuary hills. It is next to a bush of wild mutfruit plants. There is a dufflebag containing leveled loot on the roof of the same house, accessible via the fallen tree at the back of the house.

Inhabitants

 * Codsworth (lives in The House of Tomorrow)
 * Preston Garvey (if When Freedom Calls is completed)
 * Jun Long (if When Freedom Calls is completed)
 * Marcy Long (if When Freedom Calls is completed)
 * Mama Murphy (if When Freedom Calls is completed)
 * Sturges (if When Freedom Calls is completed)
 * Vault-Tec rep (if convinced via Charisma check)
 * Sheffield (if convinced in Diamond City)

Pre-war Inhabitants

 * Sole Survivor (pre-war inhabitant and optional mayor)
 * Nora/Nate
 * Shaun
 * Codsworth
 * Mr. Able (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Mrs. Able (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Baker (pre-war inhabitant)
 * DiPietro (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Rosa (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Rosa's son (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Jahani (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Russell (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Mr. Whitfield (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Mrs. Whitfield (pre-war inhabitant)
 * Mr Smith (pre-war inhabitant)

Related quests

 * War Never Changes
 * Out of Time
 * When Freedom Calls
 * Sanctuary
 * The Molecular Level (optional; only if the Sole Survivor chose to ask for help from the Minutemen)

Appearances
Sanctuary Hills appears only in Fallout 4.

Bugs

 * Upon fast travel to the settlement, the residents may appear on the roofs of some buildings — especially the one with the workshop — making dialogue difficult or even impossible. You can resolve this by either fast traveling again (sometimes 2 or 3 times to resolve), waiting for them to walk and fall off the roof, by building stairs up to the roof via the workshop and climbing up or, if you have already reached level 41, jetpack onto the roof with a modified power armor.
 * Occasionally, upon fast traveling to Sanctuary Hills, a lone Vertibird will appear over the settlement hovering for a moment. It will then suddenly lose control and crash, inflicting damage to the Sole Survivor if they are too close to the area of impact.
 * Using the Recruitment beacon at Sanctuary Hills may result in some bugged quests that will be impossible to complete from recruited settlers (unnamed settlers only, not from named settlers).
 * There have been cases in which, upon finishing any potential Minutemen quest at the end of which you are asked to report to Preston Garvey, you will find that all the settlers, including Preston Garvey and Mama Murphy, have returned to the Museum of Freedom without any option of returning them to Sanctuary. Any companions residing in Sanctuary do not appear to leave however.
 * When having trading stands, all the settlers may permanently stay near the stands without moving until the stands are destroyed. Fast traveling does not fix this bug. (Console Only)
 * Checking the settlement stats on the player's Pip-Boy for Sanctuary Hills may display erroneous stats, such as 0 defense, 0 beds and/or 0 water. This does not affect the settlement in any way, and the stats should reset to normal by fast traveling back to Sanctuary Hills, except for the happiness level which may drop (especially if the Sole Survivor is away for a long time without noticing the glitch on the Pip-boy). That stat will take some time to re-establish.
 * There is an invisible maple tree for scrapping in the northern corner behind the yellow house that is next door north of the blue house with the cellar. It can't be seen normally, but in construction mode, the outline is highlighted in yellow.
 * Sometimes upon fast traveling to Sanctuary Hills, your settlers may become hostile. Simply reloading a save seems to fix this.

Behind the scenes
Sanctuary Hills appears to be set in the same location as the real-world Minute Man National Historical Park, as both are located northwest of Concord across what appears to be the Concord River, the bridge used to access Sanctuary in-game is nearly identical to the real-life Old North Bridge, and the location's map-marker bears a resemblance to the Minute Man statue adjacent to the bridge in real-life (Sanctuary also has a Minute Man statue, albeit adjacent to the wrong side of the bridge).