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Harold is the best character in the Fallout series: his strange transformation and appearances across three games make him a living link between different eras of the wasteland. Nick Valentine, Joshua Graham, Dogmeat and the rest of this list each make a different case for what makes Fallout memorable. This is an editorial ranking, not an official canon order or a popularity poll.
How this Fallout character ranking works
Fallout spans different protagonists, settings and story styles. Bethesda’s timeline places Fallout in 2161, Fallout 2 in 2241, Fallout 3 in 2277, Fallout: New Vegas in 2281 and Fallout 4 in 2287. Bethesda describes New Vegas through its faction conflict, while Fallout 4 centers on the Sole Survivor’s search and choices in the Commonwealth.
The order below weighs narrative depth and change, memorability, importance to a game’s story or themes, and distinctiveness. Recurring appearances count as a strength, but not enough on their own to determine a character’s place. The selection includes companions, major story figures and an eccentric side character rather than limiting “best” to party members.
The best characters in Fallout, ranked
1. Harold
Harold is Fallout’s most unusual long-running character: a mutated wastelander whose identity becomes increasingly entangled with the natural world. His appearances in Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 give him a perspective that reaches across changing generations and regions. He is not simply a familiar face returning; his altered form makes the passage of time visible in a way few characters can.
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That combination of eerie design, longevity and melancholy gives Harold the strongest claim to the top spot. PC Gamer and GamesRadar+ have also included him in their character coverage, but that is editorial recognition, not evidence of a consensus ranking.
2. Nick Valentine
Nick is a detective in Fallout 4 whose synthetic identity is bound up with the memories of a pre-war investigator. That premise gives him more than a striking appearance: his public role, inherited memories and own sense of self meet in one character. GamesRadar+ has highlighted the unusual pairing of synth and investigator, and it is precisely that tension that makes Nick stand out among the series’ companions and NPCs.
3. Joshua Graham
Joshua Graham, a central figure in New Vegas’s Honest Hearts story, is a former Legion adherent confronting the consequences of Caesar’s brutality. His search for redemption is compelling because it does not erase his responsibility for what came before. GamesRadar+ emphasizes his accountability and backstory; this ranking places him high for the way his personal reckoning echoes the wider game’s concern with power and violence.
Rank #2
- From the acclaimed Prime Video series, Fallout
- Hand-painted figure
- Measures 8 inches tall
- Stands on a 5-inch wide base
4. Dogmeat
Dogmeat is one of Fallout’s most recognizable companion roles, recurring by name in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. The name refers to different dogs across the timeline, not one unchanged animal traveling through every game. Bethesda notes that the Fallout 4 companion can equip gear, carry items and fetch nearby objects, making him useful as well as instantly legible as a companion.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Bethesda also identifies River, a German Shepherd, as the dog who played Fallout 4’s Dogmeat. His place here reflects both the character’s recurring role and his distinctive bond with the player, not a claim that every incarnation is the same individual.
5. Craig Boone
Boone, a former New California Republic soldier and watchman in New Vegas, brings the costs of conflict into the player’s journey. His past makes the game’s factional pressures personal rather than abstract: the Mojave’s political struggle is also a landscape inhabited by people marked by war. GamesRadar+ discusses that morally troubling experience as part of his character, and it is why Boone ranks above companions defined chiefly by their combat utility.
Rank #3
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6. Fawkes
Fawkes is a super mutant in Fallout 3 who complicates the assumptions the player might make about his kind. He is studious and peaceable, and the player can free him from isolation. His value is less about a sprawling arc than about the perspective he adds to the game: a character can belong to a feared group without fitting its stereotype.
7. Fantastic
Fantastic is a gloriously absurd presence at the Helios One power plant in New Vegas. His self-assurance and apparent expertise are summed up in the game line PC Gamer reproduces: “They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said ‘welcome aboard.’” He has less narrative depth than the characters above him, but few minor characters make such an immediate impression with so little screen time.
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8. Rex
Rex is New Vegas’s cybernetic dog companion, a distinct counterpart to the various dogs called Dogmeat in other games. That difference gives the series’ canine companions more range than a repeated name alone might suggest. Rex’s place is lower because his role is more specific to one game, but he is a memorable example of Fallout’s ability to make even a companion animal feel at home in its strange, technologically scarred world.
Rank #4
- Incredibly detailed 7” scale figure based on the Amazon MGM Studios original series FALLOUT
- Designed with Ultra Articulation with up to 22 moving parts for full range of posing
- Hank MacLean is featured in his look from Fallout Season 2
- Includes 4 extra hands, removable forearm jets with effects and base
- Includes collectible art card with character art on the front, and character biography on the back
Why the order is debatable
Fallout does not have one consistent kind of standout character. A player drawn to companion relationships might put Dogmeat or Boone first; someone who values a carefully drawn personal reckoning could favor Joshua Graham; and a fan of oddball world-building may rank Fantastic higher. The games also pursue different narrative emphases, so a character’s importance in one entry is not directly comparable to a recurring figure such as Harold.
That is why this list favors a mix of lasting influence, strong characterization and distinctiveness instead of treating recurrence, popularity or combat usefulness as a complete measure of quality.
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