Fallout 4’s creepiest mystery has still yet to be solved

One of Fallout 4’s creepiest mysteries has yet to be solved, and potentially never will be, as it seems that Bethesda may have never actually included a way for said mystery to be solved in-game.

A few months ago, one user on the r/fo4 subreddit posted a thread titled “What is the secret meaning?”, featuring screenshots of odd markings in the Fens Street sewers.

Said markings may look similar to the same ones the Railroad leaves behind, but they’re not identical. Instead, the markings in the Fen Street sewers are actually related to a series of holotapes you can find throughout the location titled “Dear Detective”.

The holotapes have been left by a serial killer named The Fens Phantom, and each holotape is addressed to an unnamed “Detective” who has been tracking the serial killer’s murders.

Each of the Xs in the Fens Street sewer signifies the Phantom’s victims, and they assumedly the amount of Xs increases each time to signify that they’re the 2nd, 3rd etc. numbered victim that the Phantom has killed.

In the last holotape you can find, The Fens Phantom apologises to the detective for mortally wounding them, stating “I didn't want to hurt you, detective. I didn't want to hurt you, but you hurt me first.”

While the detective’s story seemingly came to an end, it seems that the Phantom’s story never will– because you can’t actually find the Phantom in-game.

It seems that a confrontation with the Phantom was planned at one point in time, but was scrapped late into development for some reason.

We know this because, as revealed on the Fallout Wikia, the Phantom (unlike the large majority of characters only heard in holotape messages) does actually have a character ID associated with their voicelines.

That means, through the use of console commands, you can actually spawn The Phantom Fens NPC into the game… although said NPC seems to be a placeholder… for a completely different scrapped NPC named Arnie who also never made it into the game.

It seems in the world of Fallout 4, the Phantom was never brought to justice for their crimes… and, thanks to the fact that the conclusion to their story is considered cut content, they never will be.