Vaults are synonymous with the Fallout franchise, and not just because they’re shelter from the nuclear apocalypse that serves as an inciting incident in the alternative historical lore. The Vaults themselves are the source of major plot points, factions, and much of the macabre, tongue-in-cheek humor that Fallout is known for. That’s because they were never meant to keep their residents safe; instead, many of the Vaults were designed as a series of twisted Skinner Box experiments to test all sorts of conditions on their human residents, from the absurd to the horrific.
To give you an idea, we’ve gathered a list of the wildest, weirdest Vaults in Fallout history. These hail from various Fallout games. Some are mentioned in passing, while others play a central role in the story and world. In all cases, though, these Vaults are supremely messed up.
For more on the strange world of Fallout, check out our ranking of the best Fallout games, as well as our Fallout TV series review. And if you want to enhance your Fallout 4 experience, check out the best Fallout 4 mods.
Vault 11 – Human Sacrifice and a Tragic Twist
One of the more tragic Vaults, this enclosure was meant to test if inhabitants would be willing to sacrifice single individuals once per year to ensure the safety of the rest. They used an election system to determine an Overseer who would manage the Vault and then would go on to become the sacrifice for the subsequent year. This continued until one Overseer used her year in charge to violently remove her opposition and declared that all future sacrifices would be chosen randomly. This in turn sparked a coup that killed many of the residents, and the ones who remained ultimately learned that the entire point of the experiment was to inspire them to rebel against the practice. Some exited the Vault at this point, while others took their lives in despair over what they had done.
Vault 12 – The First Ghouls
Some Vaults had sophisticated psychological experiments in play, while others were just plain cruel. Vault 12 was designed with a malfunctioning door on purpose, which didn’t fully seal, to allow radiation to seep in. The idea was to test the effects of small doses of radiation over long periods of time. Sure enough, the inhabitants of Vault 12 became the first Ghouls–mutated humans who appear like living corpses but often retain their human intelligence and sometimes even have extended lifespans.
Vault 21 – Betting the House
A centerpiece of the city of New Vegas, Vault 21 started out as an actual, real Vault. Appropriate to its setting, it was designed as a gambling hub, leaving all major decisions to games of chance. It remained in operation until Mr. House won control of the Vault and converted it into a resort hotel.
Vault 51 – This Is A Test
Many Vaults had their own methods of choosing an Overseer, but Vault 51 left that responsibility in the hands of a single artificial intelligence. ZAX was meant to use its hyper-intelligence to select the best resident for the job, but then it couldn’t stop coming up with tests to measure their aptitude. After a while, it began fabricating fake crises to test the residents, and the constant escalation–with overt encouragement from ZAX–led to an all-out war between inhabitants.
Vaults 55 and 56 – Stand Up
Sometimes the Vaults are designed to be read in pairs, and that’s the case for these two. In Vault 55, there was no provided entertainment at all. In Vault 56, the only entertainment was tapes of a bad stand-up comedian. Is it better to be bored or repulsed?
Vault 77 – Hi Ho
A Vault is a big space, designed for about 1,000 inhabitants. Vault 77 had just one, and a crate full of puppets. The isolation eventually impacted the mental health of the single resident, and he developed dissociative identities based on the puppets.
Vault 81 – Secret Science
Whereas most Vaults had a single population, Vault 81 had two–a population of civilians, and a separate, secret population of scientists living in their own walled-off area, tasked with performing medical experiments on the civilians. The goal was to come up with a universal cure for a fatal disease. That may seem cruel, but it actually ended up much better for the civilians than the scientists. That’s thanks to the Overseer abandoning the mission and sealing the science sector away to let the civilian sector manage on its own as normal. The scientists eventually passed away from old age, leaving only their robot helper to toil away on a cure.
Vault 108 – Too Many Garys
This Vault was designed to be on the brink of conflict at all times, and sure enough, it worked. The selected Overseer was intentionally chosen as a terminally ill man, power was designed to start sporadically failing after a few decades, and the armory was stuffed to the gills. It was a tinderbox already. But what made Vault 108 stand out even more is that on top of everything else, it included a cloning device. One resident named Gary cloned himself dozens of times, and each clone came out of the proverbial oven feeling increasingly hostile to any non-clones. The result was a takeover by Gary clones, and they killed everyone else in the Vault, including the original Gary.
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