Fallout 4 Curie: Affinity, Romance, Emergent Behavior
Short answer: Curie becomes a companion when you finish the Vault 81 quest Hole in the Wall. Finish her personal quest, Emergent Behavior, and she moves from a Miss Nanny robot body into a synth body, which can wear armor. This guide covers how to recruit her, how to raise affinity, the personal quest, the romance, and her companion perk Combat Medic, based on Nukapedia.
This guide reflects information as of 12 October 2026. The latest Fallout 4 update is the one of 18 August 2026 (Steam announcement); it covers the Creation Kit, crash fixes and the mod archive limit, with nothing about Curie.
Curie at a glance: five points
- The only requirement to recruit her is finishing Hole in the Wall in Vault 81. She joins you whether you give the cure to the patient, Austin, or keep it.
- Affinity stops at 499 until her personal quest is complete. At 250 she starts talking about the quest.
- Emergent Behavior does not progress until you finish the main quest Dangerous Minds. You ask Dr. Amari at the Memory Den in Goodneighbor.
- Her inventory does not carry over to the new body. Take her items back before the procedure.
- Reaching affinity 1000 gives the perk Combat Medic, although a bug is reported on PC where it does not trigger.
How to recruit Curie in Vault 81
Curie is in a secret section of Vault 81. Work through Hole in the Wall in this order.
- Donate blood to Dr. Forsythe in Vault 81.
- Leave the vault and wait at least 24 in-game hours (you may need to progress another quest for the scene to start).
- When you come back, the patient Austin Engill has been moved to the infirmary. Speak to Dr. Penske to start the quest.
- Follow Bobby De Luca to the hidden entrance in the reactor room and go into the secret section. Mole rats there can give you a disease if they bite you.
- Meet Curie in the last room. Only one dose of the cure is left.
- Bring her back to Dr. Forsythe's clinic and choose whether to use the cure on Austin or keep it.
She joins you either way. One precaution: Nukapedia advises talking to Curie and recruiting her before you hand the cure to Dr. Forsythe, because a bug has been reported where, after the handover, she runs back to the Vault 81 infirmary every time you dismiss her. Finish that conversation before you walk into the clinic.
Robot Curie versus synth Curie
| Item | Robot (Miss Nanny) | After the synth transfer |
|---|---|---|
| Health | 440 | 670 |
| Armor | Cannot wear any; no inherent resistance | Can wear armor |
| Weapons | Built-in laser and buzzsaw | Uses weapons like other humanoid companions; starts with a laser rifle |
| When downed | A robot, so stimpaks cannot revive her in combat | Like other humanoid companions |
| Status effects | Immune to radiation and poison | Not stated |
Her health is fixed regardless of your level. According to Nukapedia, other companions catch up to robot Curie at around level 49 to 50, and to synth Curie only at level 107 or higher. For most of the game she is the toughest companion you can bring.
Raising affinity, and what lowers it
Curie favors selfless and peaceful choices. Affinity is a hidden value that rises slowly while she travels with you and changes with your choices and actions.
What raises and lowers it
| Change | Action |
|---|---|
| Up | Accepting settlers' radiant quests |
| Up | Being supportive or peaceful in dialogue |
| Up | Showing appreciation for robots in dialogue |
| Up | Joining the Brotherhood of Steel or the Minutemen |
| Up | Healing Dogmeat |
| Up | Accepting Rogue Robot quests from the Automatron DLC |
| Down | Unnecessary violence |
| Down | Stealing and pickpocketing |
| Down | Becoming addicted to chems or alcohol |
| Down | Cannibalism |
| Down | Destroying a neutral Mister Gutsy or Mister Handy |
| Down | Doing the Institute's radiant Reclamation quests |
| Down | Using Charisma checks to ask for more caps (with exceptions) |
| Down | Entering the town of Covenant |
| Down | Speaking to Pickman |
| Down | Taking Tinker Tom's serum |
This table picks the main items from Nukapedia's likes and dislikes list, which has well over a hundred quest-specific entries. When unsure, choose the peaceful, helpful option.
Numbers worth knowing
- A reaction is worth +15 for "liked", +35 for "loved", -15 for "disliked" and -35 for "hated" (scaled by the size of the action).
- Simply having her along also raises affinity every 10 minutes by 40 minus 0.033 times the current affinity, provided you earned at least 1 XP in that period. From 0 to 500 takes about 160 minutes.
- Affinity will not go above 499 until her personal quest is finished, even if the game says she "liked that".
A practical order (a rule of thumb)
- Finish Hole in the Wall, recruit her and keep her with you. Traveling together raises affinity every 10 minutes, as long as you earned at least 1 XP in that period.
- Accept settlers' help quests along the way. Joining the Minutemen or the Brotherhood of Steel is also liked.
- Keep fights to the necessary ones, and avoid stealing, pickpocketing and chem or alcohol addiction.
- When the personal quest comes up at 250, finish the main quest Dangerous Minds and proceed with Emergent Behavior.
- Once the cap is lifted after the quest, raise affinity to 1000.
The personal quest: Emergent Behavior
When affinity reaches 250, Curie asks to talk. If the game does not start it by itself, use Talk. She believes that as a robot she lacks "human inspiration" and cannot make her research progress.
Before you start
- You must have finished the main quest Dangerous Minds. Until then the quest stays paused.
- Be ready to take Curie to the Memory Den in Goodneighbor.
- If you modified Curie at a robot workbench, plan around it first (see the warning below).
Steps
- Tell Curie you will find someone to help.
- Meet Dr. Amari at the Memory Den. Amari suggests a synth body rather than a human one.
- Curie waits at the Memory Den. After 24 in-game hours, go down to the Memory Den basement.
- Downstairs is a synth (G5-19) left in a vegetative state after a failed memory wipe, and the person caring for her: either Glory or an unnamed caretaker.
- If it is Glory, passing a Charisma check persuades her to allow the use of G5-19's body. The unnamed caretaker agrees without a check.
- Watch Dr. Amari's procedure, then talk to Curie. The quest completes and you receive 300 or more XP.
Who you meet depends on your Railroad status. You get the unnamed caretaker if Road to Freedom has not been completed or assigned, if you are an enemy of the Railroad, or if Glory has died during Precipice of War.
Warnings
- Items in her old inventory do not transfer. The old body stays in the Memory Den basement, where you can take them. If it was modified at a robot workbench, it reverts to default.
- On PC, a bug is reported where a robot-workbench-modified Curie says nothing during the conversation with Dr. Amari.
- After the transfer her combat behavior can stay old. Recruit a different companion and then go back to Curie, which is reported to fix it.
Romance and the perk Combat Medic
How the romance works
Curie can be romanced. As with other companions, the romance conversations appear at high affinity: a "flirt" option in the second conversation after 500, and a "romance" option in the final one. Both are Charisma checks.
Because Curie's affinity is stuck at 499 until her quest is done, you can expect to reach the romance conversations after finishing the personal quest (this is our inference).
- Once romanced, Curie says "I love you" in conversation.
- With a romanced companion near, sleeping in an unowned bed gives the perk Lover's Embrace: 15% more XP for 8 hours.
- She cannot sleep in a bed with you until the romance is established.
The affinity-1000 perk
At affinity 1000 (the "idolize" stage and the threshold for the perk; the internal cap is 1100) you receive the companion perk Combat Medic. Raise affinity to 1000 after finishing the personal quest. In detail:
- Effect: when your health falls below 10% of its maximum, you recover 100 health
- Frequency: once every 24 hours
- Requirement: finish the personal quest Emergent Behavior and reach affinity 1000 with Curie
- Caution: a bug is reported on PC where the perk has no effect (see below)
Note that Nukapedia lists a bug on PC where the perk does not work because of a coding error (the check is written as 10.0, or 1000%, instead of 10%), marked verified. Nothing is said for other platforms, so check on your own setup.
At affinity 1000 she also tells you about research on improving stimpaks with mutfruit. The improved stimpak, Curie's healthpak, is cut content and not obtainable in the game.
Common bugs and fixes (from Nukapedia)
- Dismissing her sends her back to the Vault 81 infirmary. Prevent it by recruiting her before handing the cure to Dr. Forsythe.
- Her robot body disappears after the transfer and her items are lost (PC). Take her items before the procedure.
- She swaps weapons by herself. She may pick up and equip dropped weapons.
- Dressing her removes her default outfit. Taking the armor off leaves her naked.
- No dialogue about your relationship (PC). A listed fix is the console command "setav CA_WantsToTalkRomanceRetry 1". Save first.
- Do not use "modav ca_affinity" to change affinity. It breaks the gain and loss multipliers, stops further romance options, and is described as irreversible.
These are Nukapedia's bug reports; they may not occur on every platform or version.
FAQ
Should I give the cure to Austin or keep it?
For recruiting Curie it makes no difference. The quest rewards differ, with giving it to Austin adding the Vault 81 room and the Syringer rifle; this guide does not go into that.
Her affinity will not go past 499
Finishing Emergent Behavior lifts the cap. If the quest will not progress, check that you have finished the main quest Dangerous Minds.
Sources (Nukapedia is a community wiki): Nukapedia: Curie / Nukapedia: Emergent Behavior / Nukapedia: Hole in the Wall / Nukapedia: Dangerous Minds / Nukapedia: Affinity / Nukapedia: Combat Medic / Nukapedia: Lover's Embrace / Steam: Fallout 4 news (the 18 August 2026 update).
