How to Hack in Fallout 4 (Terminals Explained)

You will encounter Terminals throughout the Wastelands in Fallout 4, and you need to use hacking skills to access them. This guide will explain how to hack in Fallout 4, including tips that make breaking into Advanced Terminals nearly impossible to fail.

How Hacking Works in Fallout 4

With the recent success of Amazon Prime’s Fallout TV series, many viewers are revisiting the classic Bethesda RPGs to get their Wasteland fix. However, you may be wondering how hacking works in Fallout 4, given the game originally launched nearly a decade ago in 2015. Don’t worry we’ve got you covered!

Below are the steps on how to hack in Fallout 4 successfully:

• Look for full words on the Terminal, such as “Cake” or “Vault”.
• Full words are potential Passwords. However, they cannot be broken up and must be on a single line to be considered valid.
• You will now have four attempts to guess the Password correctly.
• Click a full word in the Terminal. If it says “Entry Denied Likness = 1,” that means the word you chose has “one” correct letter in the actual password.
• When you are down to “1 attempt remaining,” look for “closed bracket” lines such as < >, {} or [ ].
  • For example: [a34], {<}, or <a3!x>.
• Clicking on a closed bracket string will reset your Attempts Remaining and will also remove dud Passwords to help you narrow it down.
• Keep clicking full words on the Terminal until you pick the correct password.

How to Hack Fallout 4

The first step to hack in Fallout 4 is pretty straightforward. You want to interact with a Terminal and then look for full letter words. There is no strategy to this, so I recommend choosing at least two words at random and paying attention to the “Entry Denied Likeness” message to give you an idea of how to narrow your choices down.

Once you get down to one or two “Attempts Remaining,” start looking for closed bracket strings of code. As stated above, these include < >, { }, and [ ]. By clicking these, you will not only get your Attempts Remaining reset, but it will sometimes remove a “dud” word from the password pool. Making it easier to figure out the actual password. For your convenience, I have provided an image below to show you what closed bracket lines look like:

How to Hack Advanced Terminals in Fallout 4

In Fallout 4, you need to have the Hacker Perk Rank 1 unlocked to hack Advanced Terminals. This is easier said than done, though, as you need to have the right Intelligence stat levels first before you can attempt this. There are also Expert and Master Terminals in Fallout 4 as you progress through the game.

Below are the Perk requirements needed to hack Advanced Terminals in Fallout 4, as well as Expert and Master levels.

• Hacker Perk Rank 1:
  • Requirement: INT 4 / Description: Allows you to hack Advanced Terminals.
• Hacker Perk Rank 2:
  • Requirement: INT 4, Character LVL 9 / Description: You can hack Expert Terminals.
• Hacker Perk Rank 3:
  • Requirement: INT 4, Character LVL 21 / Description: You can hack Master Terminals
• Hacker Perk Rank 4:
  • Requirement: INT 4, Character LVL 33 / Description: When hacking, you never get locked out of a Terminal when things go wrong.

If you are someone who really struggles to hack in Fallout 4, then consider getting Hacker Perk Rank 4. However, once you get the “closed bracket” code trick down, you really don’t need it. If used correctly, you can pretty much never get locked out of a Terminal.

However, you will need to unlock Hacker Perk Rank 1 through 3 if you want to gain access to all content in the game. Unfortunately, some of the best loot in Fallout 4 is hidden behind these higher-tiered Terminals in the back-half of the game.

Fallout 4 is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S, and PC.