Fallout was developed and published by Interplay Entertainment in 1997. It was an open world
post-apocalyptic role playing game serving as the spiritual successor to their previous
game Wasteland. Even though Fallout eventually became its own unique game, it was in the
beginning developed as an official sequel to Wasteland and thus the two games share
a lot of similarities. Game developer Tim Cain is largely responsible for the games
creation as he alone developed many of the games early mechanics and even the game's
engine before assembling a team. With the release and success of Blizzard's Diablo,
Interplay wanted to turn Fallout into a real-time online multiplayer game. But Cain among others
refused and after some debate, Fallout stayed true to its original story-driven single-player
format. In 1997, after 3 years in development, Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
was released and became an instant success. The following year the game received a sequel
in the form of Fallout 2. Beginning in 2004, Interplay got into some legal issues and faced
bankruptcy. In an attempt to save the company, they sold the rights for the entire Fallout
franchise to Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda set out to completely revamp the series and
moved away from the isometric, turn-based gameplay the Fallout games had so far been
known for. Instead, Fallout 3 was a first- and third-person, real-time combat, action RPG.
Before Bethesda acquired the rights to the Fallout franchise, Interplay and Black Isle
Studios worked on a third Fallout game only known by its project name Van Buren. It followed
the same style as Fallout 1 and 2 in that the game was isometric and turn-based instead
of the open world environment Fallout 3 would later introduce. And they got really far into
development as well. It's been said that the Jefferson Engine created specifically for
this game was 95% complete when the game was canceled back in 2003. However some of the
content did not go to waste as it was later used in Fallout: New Vegas. For example
Caesar's Legion, The Burned Man, and Big MT.
So many characters, locations, buildings, anything really, are based on or inspired
by things from the real world. Some are obvious easter eggs while other are more difficult
to spot. There's so much of this stuff in the Fallout games that it could almost be
an entire episode on its own. But let's cover a few of them at least. In the first Fallout
you can sometimes randomly encounter an old fashioned British police box. If the player
try to approach this box, it will slowly begin to fade away. This is of course a reference
to the time travel machine featured in Doctor Who. In Fallout 3 you can find a weapon named
Callahan's Magnum which is an exact replica of the gun used in the Dirty Harry movies.
At the exact center of the map in Fallout 3, you'll find a post with a sign that reads
TES-04. This is a reference to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, also developed by Bethesda.
In Fallout 3, you can find this monument which is a reference to Interplay and the logo they
used in Fallout 1 and 2. Mr. New Vegas in Fallout: New Vegas is voiced by Wayne Newton
who is known as Mr. Las Vegas in real life. Benny, also from New Vegas, is based on real
life American mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. Indiana Jones' remains can be found inside
a fridge, mocking a scene from the fourth installment where Indiana Jones survives a
nuclear blast by hiding inside a fridge. In Nipton you'll find two charred skeletons with the
names Owen and Beru. This is a morbid reference to a scene in Star Wars when Luke Skywalker
returns home to find the burned corpses of his aunt Beru and uncle Owen. You know how
in many trailers, endings, and art for the games the protagonist can be seen walking
alongside Dogmeat? Well this was inspired by the movie Mad Max 2. In fact, the entire
franchise was heavily inspired by the Mad Max universe, especially the movies featuring
Mel Gibson. Another example is the leather armor used by the main characters that was
designed based on the one Mel Gibson used in the movies.
In Fallout 3 there's a quest called The Power of the Atom. It revolves around the town Megaton
and more specifically the unexploded atomic bomb located at the town's center. Now, during
the quest the player is normally given the choice of detonating the bomb instead of disarming
it, thus receiving a lot of negative karma. However, in the Japanese version of the game,
this option is not available for well obvious reasons.
One of the most popular soft drinks in the Fallout universe is Nuka-Cola. It is obviously
based on the real world Coca-Cola. In Fallout, Nuka-Cola was invented in 2044 by a man named
John-caleb Bradberton. Now, what's interesting about this name is that John-Caleb Bradberton
is an amalgamation of the inventors of Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Named John Pemberton and Caleb
Bradham respectively.
In Fallout 3 and New Vegas there's a weapon called Fat Man which is a tactical nuclear
catapult. In more simple terms, you can shoot nukes from your freakin shoulder. The name
is taken from the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan at the end of World War 2. This thing
is obviously not real though, right? Well, it does kinda exist in real life. It was based
on the very real weapon called the M-28, M-29, or simply the Davy Crockett.
It could fire a small atomic round releasing extreme and deadly amounts of radiation. It was developed
during the cold war and was deployed with US Army forces between 1961 and 1971. The
biggest difference is that in the game the weapon is shoulder-mounted while in real life
it stands on a tripod.
If you play and complete the original Fallout and then wait for the end credits to start
rolling. Try typing boom and this will happen.
The guy who's head is exploding is none other than the creator of Fallout himself Tim Cain.
During the opening of Fallout: New Vegas, you're shown inkblots in order to determine
your mental health. Some players thought one of the inkblots looked like two bears high-fiving
but this was sadly not an option in the game. So, as with every popular game on PC, a mod
was created specifically to include the option of Two Bears High-Fiving. This opinion got
popular enough that when Obsidian developed and released the DLC Honest Hearts, they referenced
this turn of events by adding a character named Two-Bears-High-Fiving.
In Fallout 2 there's a religious sect called The Hubologists who believe in the religion
of Hubology. They can be found in the former city of San Francisco and was founded by a
man named Dick Hubbell. This is all a parody of the real world religion of Scientology
which was founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It even parodies famous Scientology
advocate Tom Cruise and his wife at the time Nicole Kidman in the form of two characters
named Juan Cruz and Vikki Goldman.
Officially, the vaults in the Fallout universe were shelters designed to protect the American population
from a nuclear holocaust. However, with a population of almost 400 million by 2077,
Vault-Tec would need to build around 400,000 vaults that could shelter 1000 people each.
But this was all a facade. The government and Vault-Tec never actually believed this
would ever happened and only build 122 vaults. Not in an attempt to save humanity, but as
social experiments on pre-selected segments of the population to see how they would react
to the extreme conditions of living in complete isolation. Given these experiments, a few
vaults in Fallout has some pretty interesting and bizarre stories to tell.
In Vault 6 and 12, small amounts of radiation was continuously leaked into the vault until
its residents eventually turned into ghouls. This eventually transformed into the ghoul
infested town Necropolis featured in the first Fallout. 999 men entered Vault 68 but only
1 woman. Vault 69 is its counterpart with 999 women but only 1 man.
Neither vault lasted very long though as the unbalanced population was unable to reproduce.
Vault 77 contained only 1 man and a crate full of puppets. It was an experiment to observe
the human condition in complete isolation. After only 1 hour, the man now known as Puppet
Man, was pounding on the vault doors, screaming that he was the only one there. After a few
months, the puppets started talking to him and he only continued his decent into insanity.
Vault 106 experimented with psychoactive drugs and their effects on the human mind in this
enclosed space. The population swiftly descended into insanity and when the player finally
gets there, the drug is still pumped into the vault causing hallucinations. The
remaining population of the vault has gone complete insane, attack anyone on sight. Vault
108 was special for the fact that it had a cloning facility. This quickly got out of
hand however as clones became very aggressive against non-clones. When the player arrives,
only clones named Gary remains. Upon arriving at Vault 11, the inhabitants were told by
a computer that they must sacrifice one person per year or everyone would die. The decision
process was settled by a democratic voting system, and life continued as normal inside
the vault. Well, except the killing-one-person-every-year part. After a while, some people wanted a
lottery instead of a democracy and arguments quickly turned violent. People started killing
each other and at the end of it all, only five remained. These five survivors made a
pact to commit suicide together and refused to sacrifice any one person. Only then was
it reveled that they had been living a lie. A year passed and no one died because that
was exactly what the computer wanted. The computer simply wanted them to defy the rules.
Knowing that these years of sacrifice had been for nothing, four out of the five survivors
decided to commit suicide anyway. The remaining vault dweller then left Vault 11 and his
identity has since never been revealed.