Fallout 3 Xbox achievements reveal that you're (mostly) all good Lone Wanderers at heart

With Fallout being everywhere we look right now, we thought it a good time to dive into Xbox achievement data and see how players behaved in Fallout 3...

Heidi Nicholas

Published 18 Apr 2024

All the discussion that's been sparked about Fallout's world and lore got us thinking about the choices players made themselves when playing the games and, luckily, there just so happens to be a way to see how many of you chose to be good, bad, or neutral. Fallout 3's Karma system might have been more of a reputation thing than an ethical scorecard, but the Fallout 3 achievements do give a general idea of what way everybody decided to play. As it turns out, most of you chose to go out on a high of good Karma!

Fallout 3 players prefer to be the good guy

Fallout 3 is the only game in the franchise to have level-specific Karma-related achievements. Your Karma level is based on the decisions and actions you take during the game, whether small or large, and fluctuates depending on what you do. The system itself — its effectiveness, its accuracy, whether it makes any difference at all — is still contested, but taking a look at just those achievements gives us some interesting stats to work with.

So, let's start: the first round of Karma achievements focus on reaching level eight with bad, neutral, or good Karma. The distinction is clear from the start: the global Xbox unlock percentage for reaching level eight with bad Karma is 20.30% (with 29% of TrueAchievements members unlocking the same achievement), while 15.16% of Xbox players (25% when it comes to specifically TA members) reaching level eight with neutral Karma, and a sizeable 47% of TA members reaching level eight with good Karma. That's almost half of you TA members wanting to play as the good guy. The global unlock percentage for reaching level eight with good Karma is 35.28%, but that still makes it the most popular choice above bad and neutral Karma.

The Reaver achievement in Fallout 3 worth 18 pointsReached Level 8 with Bad Karma

The Mercenary achievement in Fallout 3 worth 19 pointsReached Level 8 with Neutral Karma

The Protector achievement in Fallout 3 worth 14 pointsReached Level 8 with Good Karma

Then we get to the achievements for reaching level 14 with bad, neutral, or good Karma, and once again, most of you prove determined to be the good guy. 15.05% of Xbox players overall (24% of the tracked gamers here on TA) made it to level 14 with bad Karma, while 9.55% overall (20% of tracked gamers on TA) made it to the same level with neutral Karma, and 28.14% overall (40% of TA members) reached level 14 with good Karma.

The Harbinger of War achievement in Fallout 3 worth 40 pointsReached Level 14 with Bad Karma

The Pinnacle of Survival achievement in Fallout 3 worth 44 pointsReached Level 14 with Neutral Karma

The Ambassador of Peace achievement in Fallout 3 worth 31 pointsReached Level 14 with Good Karma

When looking at reaching level 20 with various types of Karma, it seems the good guy still wins: 21.06% of Xbox players overall (33% of the tracked gamers on TA) made it to level 20 with good Karma, while only 9.39% overall (20% on TA) reached the same level with bad Karma, and 6.60% overall (17%) reached level 20 with neutral Karma.

The Scourge of Humanity achievement in Fallout 3 worth 67 pointsReached Level 20 with Bad Karma

The Paradigm of Humanity achievement in Fallout 3 worth 72 pointsReached Level 20 with Neutral Karma

The Last, Best Hope of Humanity achievement in Fallout 3 worth 51 pointsReached Level 20 with Good Karma

This is especially interesting given that, as Aerodynamo points out, it is arguably much more feasible to rack up bad Karma than good, particularly since there's much more you can do to be a Bad Guy: killing, stealing, making major negative decisions in quests, and so on. Particularly as it's possible to save before doing whatever's needed to raise, level, or reduce your Karma to get the various achievements and then reloading your save to carry on as you were. The highest amount of good Karma comes from making quest choices, with not as many smaller actions available to earn yourself smaller good Karma points.

Good Karma still prevails in the Broken Steel DLC (which introduced a number of perks which could affect Karma still further), where good Karma was the most popular choice, followed by bad Karma and then neutral.

The Devil achievement in Fallout 3 worth 38 pointsReached Level 30 with Bad Karma

The True Mortal achievement in Fallout 3 worth 39 pointsReached Level 30 with Neutral Karma

The Messiah achievement in Fallout 3 worth 33 pointsReached Level 30 with Good Karma

If we take a wander over to visit Fallout 73 on TrueTrophies, we can see the story there is much the same, with most players reaching levels eight, 14, and 20 with good Karma, followed by bad Karma and then Neutral.

We didn't see a Karma system in Fallout 4 or Karma-related achievements in Fallout: New Vegas or Fallout 76, so players could be as unhinged as they liked there without fear of exposure from achievements. Overall, then, most of you chose to be a good guy in the unforgiving wastelands of Fallout 3. This coincides with what we've seen before, when Sean asked the unnerving question, are gamers evil? (It turns out most of you weren't). It'll be interesting to see if and how a Karma system returns in the next Fallout game, and if it does, how players will fare there...

Fallout is all the rage right now, thanks to the newly-released TV show. In our latest poll, most of you voted to say you'd be watching it, and the Fallout love extends to a resurgence in player numbers for the games themselves. The pre-release trailer for the show was enough to see a 33% Xbox player increase for Fallout 4, and now that it's out, our latest gameplay chart of most popular Xbox games saw Fallout 4 and 76 zoom back into the top 20.

More Fallout 3 stories:

Data Analysis Xbox 360

Written by Heidi Nicholas

Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.