The unbearable sadness of Fallout 4's Codsworth not knowing your name

"I'm sorry sir, I don't know anyone named Gaben. Sir, please put the blaster down."

"I'm sorry sir, I don't know anyone named Gaben. Sir, please put the blaster down."

The Fallout 4 wasteland is an empty place. You'll run into folks now and then, but most of them only care about what they can take. Food. Caps. Your life. If you live long enough, you'll learn to put up a wall, to block out human contact. It'll help keep you alive, but you'll always be lonely—even when you're not alone. And you'll realize that you only have one true friend in this burned, god-forsaken place: The machine who ushered you out of the old world, and into the new. It's the only thing you can count on. And there's a good chance it can't even say your damn name.

That's not true for everyone, of course. One of the game's nice little touches is the ability of Codsworth, the pre- and post-nuclear Mister Handy companion, to actually speak the player's name. Just enter your name and, as long as it's in the system, your friendship with the Codster will be taken to a whole new level. But as GamesRadar's video below demonstrates, the list has some surprisingly obvious omissions.

Some of the names on the List of Unspeakables make sense. Balothy, for instance, or Keanu. You will also not be able to make your robot call you "President." But a whole lot of others really should be there, like Barbara, Beth, Carl, Chuck, Lisa, Louise, and Simon, to name but a few. All the common variations of Sean are also off the list. On the other hand, if you want your robot to call you Assface, that's just fine. And yes, as previously confirmed, Fuckface is on the list as well. But no Andy, apparently. (Only my mother calls me Andrew.)

Fallout 4 comes out tomorrow, but our review is out right now—read it here.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.