Fallout 4 fans still debate which protagonist is better to pick, and most prefer Nora over Nate

In most RPGs, picking the hero's gender takes a couple of seconds and is forgotten by the first dungeon. Once the protagonist gets a voice, everything changes. Players are choosing an actor, a delivery, and an entire backstory rather than a character model. An argument over that choice can run for a decade without needing any excuse.

In Fallout 4, Bethesda fully voiced the main character for the first time in the series. Nate, a veteran of the Battle of Anchorage, is played by Brian T. Delaney, while Nora, a law school graduate, is played by Courtenay Taylor, known to Mass Effect fans as Jack. The question "Nate or Nora?" has resurfaced on Reddit, and most users sided with Nora yet again.

The lines are nearly identical, but they land differently. Nora gets praise for sarcasm that sounds like she's genuinely enjoying herself. Her outraged "DUDE That tunnel was full of MIRELURKS" in the Bobbi No-Nose quest in Goodneighbor has been quoted around some players' homes for years. Nate, by general consensus, is too good-natured and sounds like a cheerful suburban dad even after a nuclear war, which clashes with a gritty, Clint Eastwood-style gunslinger. One player put it neatly:

Most vets have PTSD, Nate has nostalgia.

Nate has his own strengths. Delaney sold the Silver Shroud lines so well that any NPC would want to run in panic, and his roar while on Psycho beats the Nora version, according to many. His deadpan recalls male Commander Shepard, though Nora wins in the small moments, like the drunken "blah, blah, blah" when a player skips a heartfelt confession from Codsworth or Piper.

Nate fans lean on lore. A veteran logically knows his way around power armor and heavy weapons from the first minutes, while a lawyer from prewar Boston has no obvious source for those skills. Nora fans flip the same argument. The story of a mother learning to survive in the Commonwealth from scratch for the sake of her son, only to meet him as the now-aged head of the Institute, is stronger dramatically. There is also a purely practical case for Nora. The Black Widow perk adds up to 15% damage against men, who make up the overwhelming majority of enemies in the Wasteland. Nate gets the mirrored Lady Killer, but it sees far less use.

Eleven years after release, Nate still wins in a firefight, and Nora wins everywhere else.