“He doesn’t have a heart, but he has heartstrings”: The making of Nick Valentine, Fallout’s best-loved companion

When Emil Pagliarulo was growing up in South Boston, he lived in fear of Whitey Bulger: a local crime boss who had been shaped not only by street gangs but Alcatraz, and a stint in the CIA’s mind control program, MKUltra.

"He was basically the boogeyman," Pagliarulo says. "He was the evil bad guy. You didn’t know where he was or even what he looked like, but you knew he was out there. I’m 10 years old, and I know this name."

Decades later, as Bethesda Game Studios shifted into full production on Fallout 4...