The mixture of a retro-futuristic alternate historical past aesthetic and a desolate post-nuclear apocalyptic setting lends an extremely distinct aesthetic to the Fallout universe. Repeatedly, this can be a sequence that weaponizes absurdity and over-the-top humour to inject its world filled with texture, whether or not that’s within the type of fascinating lore, hilarious satire, or unforgettable bits and items of storytelling.
And no a part of the video games captures that in addition to whenever you’re exploring one in every of Vault-Tec’s many fallout shelters scattered all through what stays of america of America. As partaking as it’s to discover the broad open wastelands of the Fallout video games, most of the time, the highlights of those video games are when you end up inside a creepy vault and slowly uncover its darkish and twisted historical past, shedding but extra mild on simply how morally bankrupt Vault-Tec was. Right here, we’re going to speak about a number of such vaults that stick out in reminiscence.
VAULT 77
We’re going to start out issues off with a vault that you simply don’t ever really discover in any Fallout game- actually, we don’t even know the place precisely it’s situated. Vault 77 served because the backdrop for an online comedian that Bethesda launched in 2008 within the lead-up to Fallout 3’s launch, titled One Man and a Crate of Puppets. And what precisely makes the vault so creepy? It was designed by Vault-Tec to check the consequences of full, long-term isolation on a human.
Vault 77 had just one resident, who, attributable to years of full and whole solitude, ended up utterly shedding his thoughts. A while into his life within the vault, the person discovered a crate filled with puppets, and slowly began to imagine that the puppets had been alive and speaking to him. Ultimately, the person, generally known as the Puppet Man, grew deeply paranoid about what a number of the puppets had been planning on doing to him, and never lengthy afterward, left Vault 77 and went out into the wasteland. Although we’ve by no means really visited Vault 77 in a Fallout recreation, in Fallout 3, gamers can discover a single Vault 77 jumpsuit, which could recommend that the vault was someplace within the Capital Wasteland (until, in fact, Puppet Man traveled to Washington DC from wherever it was that the vault was situated).
VAULT 87
For those who’ve performed Fallout 3, you most likely bear in mind Vault 87, for each gameplay and narrative causes. So far as gameplay causes go, getting access to the vault is notoriously troublesome. Although there are technically a number of methods inside, the overwhelming majority of them are assured deathtraps, whether or not that’s by shockingly excessive ranges of radiation (presumably by a direct nuclear strike again in 2077, in accordance a log within the recreation), or by a hall crammed filled with tremendous mutants. Oh, and yeah, the vault can be filled with tremendous mutants. And centaurs.
Why precisely? Effectively, shortly earlier than the bombs fell in 2077, Vault-Tec determined that Vault 87 was going for use to check the consequences of Pressured Evolutionary Virus (or FEV) on humans- which, in fact, led to the creation of tremendous mutants and centaurs. Ultimately, the beasts managed to interrupt out, after which they began kidnapping folks all throughout the Captial Wasteland and bringing them again to the vault to show them into tremendous mutants as nicely. One such mutant is Fawkes, who, it seems, just isn’t solely pleasant, however can be one in every of Fallout 3’s recruitable companions.
VAULT 95
Discovered near the lethal Glowing Sea in Fallout 4’s Commonwealth, Vault 95 serves because the backdrop for one in every of Vault-Tec’s most twisted and exploitative social experiments (which is admittedly saying one thing, given the corporate’s love for twisted and exploitative social experiments). Vault 95 was bought as basically a rehab heart for these with chem addictions. In actual fact, for fairly some time, that’s precisely what it was! For 5 years, the residents of the vault adhered by its guidelines and, slowly however absolutely, handled their addictions, popping out the opposite aspect as more healthy people.
Vault-Tec had, nonetheless, planted an agent throughout the vault’s residents, who, as per the corporate’s directions, procured and opened up a bag full of medication 5 years after the vault was sealed, with the intention being to report how the residents would react. Depressingly sufficient, what ensued was absolute chaos. Many immediately fell again into utilizing chems, many resorted to violence, and lots of had been in a position to determine that they’d been deceived by Vault-Tec. Although there have been some who tried to maintain themselves wholesome, issues didn’t finish nicely. By the point gamers discover Vault 95 in Fallout 4 a pair centuries later, it’s being utilized by the mercenaries generally known as the Gunners as their base of operations.
VAULT 108
While you consider bizarre vaults in Fallout video games, you possibly can’t assist however immediately consider Vault 108, or what Fallout 3 followers consider because the vault filled with Garys. Your complete vault is stuffed with clones of a single man named Gary, every of them violently aggressive towards something that isn’t a clone line themselves, and all of whom had been presumably the reason for the vault’s downfall, given the truth that they’re the one survivors that gamers can discover (aside from monsters and creatures which have managed to search out their manner in as nicely).
Curiously sufficient, cloning wasn’t even the complete extent of Vault 108’s mandated experiment by Vault-Tec (although it actually was essentially the most memorable facet). Vault-Tec additionally used the vault to check how a society would deal with the shortage of management, with the overwhelming majority of the vault’s management positions being left purposefully vacant. Even the overseer that was chosen suffered from terminal most cancers. As if that and the cloning weren’t dangerous sufficient, Vault-Tec additionally deliberately rigged Vault 108’s energy provide to fail inside 20 years, stripped it filled with something that the residents may leisure themselves with, and stocked it filled with an unusually great amount of weaponry.
VAULT 118
Vault-Tec 118 began out as one thing deeply disturbing, and although the unique imaginative and prescient Vault-Tec had for it by no means got here to go, what it ended up as was in some way simply as freaky, if no more so. The unique plan had been for Vault 118 to be a tightly managed social experiment, the place the vault could be break up into two wings- a big, luxurious wing the place 10 wealthy folks would reside and have their each demand catered to by robotic butlers, and a small, tight wing the place 300 poorer folks could be crammed in collectively, with the wealthy overlords appearing as their judges in legislation, and the robots because the enforcers.
Vault 118 by no means turned that, nonetheless, as a result of not solely did funding dry up, the group of rich folks as a substitute determined that they might outlaws the conflict and its fallout was to have their brains transferred into robobrain robots. When gamers discover Vault 118 in Fallout 4’s Far Harbor enlargement, not solely do they get to fulfill its robobrain residents (who’ve nicely and really misplaced it with the passage of time), but in addition get to resolve a homicide thriller on this weird atmosphere. To say that it’s one in every of Fallout 4’s most memorable areas could be underselling it.
