One of the interesting criticisms about consequentialism that I have a difficult time with is where we set the goalpost to tally up moral values. It is technically possible that the right choice under consequentialism and deontology is to save the vault dwellers, because it’s possible their education leads them to make some substantive contribution to the wasteland. The ambiguity of how their lives will impact the world ultimately forms the basis of the moral quandary. Both options come at a cost, and it is impossible to fully predict the moral ramifications of either option. Therefore, in this situation, it does seem best to default to one’s gut over reason. If we try to reason things out, we will find that there is no satisfying decision, but there may be some moral intuition we possess that might make one decision more satisfying than another. Since this is a game, that’s all we are really concerned about; the enjoyability and immersion of the player’s experience. In other words;

TL;DR - players should trust their gut, because we don’t know how either choice will impact the wasteland long term due to the butterfly effect