Within the Fallout universe, there are seemingly endless Vaults set up by Vault-Tec for the purpose of safeguarding humanity. At least, that’s what Vault-Tec would have you believe. In reality, these Vaults were set up with the sole purpose of human experimentation, and there are a truly enormous number of them.
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It’s very hard to establish what should or shouldn’t be included in ‘canon’ within the universe. Opinions differ from fan to fan and even Chris Avellone, the creator of the Fallout Bible, has said that his work shouldn’t be used as canon while others strongly argue that it should.
It’s a bit of a minefield, so I’m going to stick with the things that are counted as canon by most people — the major games and the TV show. With that said, let’s look at some Vaults within the Fallout universe and their purpose within the Lore.
Fallout
The original Fallout game, developed by Interplay Entertainment and first released back in 1997, only introduced four Vaults into the lore of the universe, with two of them going on to be referenced in Fallout 2.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 12 | Used as a way of testing the effects of gradual exposure to radiation, the door of this Vault was designed to never seal properly. The inhabitants of Vault 12 went on to found the city of Necropolis. |
| Vault 13 | The main starting Vault of the first Fallout game, Vault 13 was a control Vault. Inhabitants chose to remain in isolation until their water chip failed and the protagonist of Fallout is sent to find a replacement. Also appears in Fallout 2, when remaining inhabitants have been kidnapped by the Enclave to be used as test subjects for the Forced Evolutionary Virus. |
| Vault 15 | Social experiment which involved the forced cohabitation of people from many cultural and religious backgrounds. The inhabitants divided into four groups, three raider gangs (Khans, Jackals and Vipers, with the fourth group going on to found Shady Sands. Also appears in Fallout 2. |
| Los Angeles Demonstration Vault | This Vault was, as the name suggests, a public demonstration facility. It was used as a legitimate shelter for the public, before being converted into the headquarters of Unity. Ultimately destroyed by nuclear detonation. |
Fallout 2
Surprisingly, Fallout 2 only brings one new Vault into the Fallout universe, as well as the two that also appear in the first Fallout game.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 8 | Vault 8 was a control Vault and its residents went on to use their G.E.C.K (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) to establish Vault City. |
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 marks the starting point of what I like to call the explosion of Vaults. From this point on, each game adds a large number of Vaults that each add to the lore and prove precisely how terrible Vault-Tec truly is.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 77 | Technically, this Vault first appeared in the web comic “One Man, and a Crate of Puppets” as part of the promotion of Fallout 3. However, I’m including it here because you can find a Vault 77 jumpsuit in Paradise Falls, along with a Holotape detailing how it ‘freaks the boys out’. |
| Vault 87 | Vault 87 was designed to test the effects of the Forced Revolutionary Virus on humans. Eventually, the residents transformed into super mutants and seized control of the Vault. |
| Vault 92 | This Vault was used to test whether aggression could be induced by pumping white noise into the Vault. As it turns out, it can, as the residents of Vault 92 eventually went insane and killed each other, leaving only Bloatflies and Mirelurks in the Vault. |
| Vault 101 | The starting Vault of Fallout 3, Vault 101 was a social experiment where the Overseer was given unlimited authority over its residents. Eventually, the Vault fell into civil war. |
| Vault 106 | Vault 106 was designed to test the effects of psychoactive drugs on its inhabitants. Released via the air filtration system, the drug caused residents to erupt into violence and their fate remains unknown. The drug stayed in the air for 200 years, causing insanity and hallucinations in anyone who entered. |
| Vault 108 | This one was a real doozy. Designed to test the effects of leadership conflicts, Vault 108 were led by a terminally ill Overseer, power systems were designed to fail after 20 years, no entertainment was available and the armory held three times the regular stock. The Vault was also given a cloning device, allowing an inhabitant named Gary to clone himself into insanity before he overran the Vault. |
| Vault 112 | Inside this Vault, residents were placed inside a virtual reality simulation controlled by the Overseer, Stanislaus Braun, for his own amusement. Once inside, the residents were tortured through virtual reality for centuries. |
| Vault-Tec’s “Vault of Tomorrow” | Technically not a Vault, but a sponsored museum exhibit which allowed visitors to take an automated tour of a “typical” Vault in order to convince them to purchase admittance into a Vault. I’m counting it. |
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegas really boosted the number of known Vaults within the lore. There are eight in total, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you by this point that they’re all pretty terrible.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 3 | This Vault was a control Vault and the residents chose to stay in situ for over a century before they were forced to open up for trade after a water leak. As a result, Fiends infiltrated the Vault and took over, killing everyone inside. |
| Vault 11 | This Vault was created to test the willingness of inhabitants to sacrifice individuals in an effort to avoid false threats of punishment. Initially, the inhabitants chose democracy and voted for which inhabitant would be sacrificed. When democracy failed, the inhabitants staged a coup which ended in the death of most inhabitants. This is essentially the Milgram Experiment on steroids, and honestly one of the darkest Vault lore stories in the entire Fallout universe. |
| Vault 17 | The initial reason for the creation of this Vault is unknown, but the inhabitants were kidnapped and transformed into Super Mutants by Unity. |
| Vault 19 | This Vault was designed to be split into rival factions – the Red and Blue sectors – to see what happened. These factions were then subjected to subliminal messaging and fake acts of sabotage, with many inhabitants succumbing to psychosis and paranoia. |
| Vault 21 | In true Las Vegas style, this Vault was designed to test the effects of excessive gambling, with all disputes being settled through betting and odds. Perhaps not surprisingly, this Vault remained stable until 2274, when Robert House won the Vault itself with a lucky hand in Blackjack, turning it into a hotel. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, I suppose. |
| Vault 22 | This one actually starts off okay. It was designed to study and create genetically modified crops and fauna, which doesn’t sound too bad, right? Until a genetically modified fungal infection eventually transformed the inhabitants of the Vault into Spore Carriers. |
| Vault 34 | This Vault featured an overstocked armory with absolutely no security measures. In a surprising move, some of the inhabitants chose to lock up the armory themselves.. Those who didn’t agree formed the Boomers tribe, which was a good choice, because a reactor leak in the Vault led to most inhabitants either dying or becoming Ghouls. |
| Securitron Vault | This was the private Vault of Robert House, where he housed an army of Securitrons. The Vault was left abandoned after the war, before being discovered and occupied by Caesar’s Legion. |
Fallout 4
Including those introduced in add-ons, Fallout 4 introduces eight Vaults into the universe, and their purposes according to lore can only reaffirm any bad feelings that you’ve already grown for Vault-Tec.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 75 | This Vault was a joint social and medical experiment where eugenics were used to breed young inhabitants into perfect soldiers. Unfortunately for Vault-Tec, the test subjects revolted against researchers. |
| Vault 81 | Scientists within the research facility at Vault 81 would use its population to test possible universal disease cures. Sadly, the Overseer had some issues with this and researchers were sealed within their section of the Vault, continuing their research on Mole Rats before they all died. The rest of the Vault was fine, though. |
| Vault 88 | An unfinished Vault included in the Vault-Tec Workshop add-on. Originally intended to be a testing facility for productivity-boosting equipment, this Vault was never finished because the Overseer became a Ghoul, eventually recruiting the Sole Survivor to help complete the experiments. |
| Vault 95 | This Vault was filled with drug addicts who were given experimental rehabilitation treatments before being informed that there was a stash of Chems within the Vault. Predictably, the inhabitants became clean but then things descended into violent chaos when they were told about the Chem stash. |
| Vault 111 | The starting Vault for Fallout 4 where the effects of long-term cryogenic stasis were being tested on inhabitants. When the all-clear signal never arrived, the Vault Security staged a coup and abandoned the Vault, a baby was kidnapped by Institute and one person became the Sole Survivor after a power failure. Well, that escalated quickly. |
| Vault 114 | This is one I can get behind. Vault 114 was intended to see what happened when a group of very wealthy inhabitants were forced to live in squalor under the leadership of an incompetent Overseer. Sadly, this Vault never came to fruition because it was never completed, for whatever reason. |
| Vault 118 | Vault 118 was intended to be a social experiment where 10 very wealthy residents would live in luxury, while given complete authority over 300 poor residents living in squalor. Due to embezzlement, the ‘lower class’ section of the Vault was never finished, but the wealthy residents did indeed move in, transferred themselves into ‘Robobrains’, achieved immortality and remained inside the Vault indefinitely. |
| Vault-Tec: Among the Stars | Okay so this one isn’t a Vault, but it is counted in the canon as one as far as I can tell. Among the Stars was a publicity piece which aimed to convince visitors that Vault-Tec technology could be used to facilitate space colonization. Sounds too good to be true? Well, experiments were also secretly carried out on both visitors and staff. |
Fallout 76
Fallout 76 adds the most Vaults into the Fallout universe by a mile. In total there are 14 Vaults to go through and Vault-Tec just keeps getting worse.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 29 | This Vault was filled with affluent residents, but none of them were over the age of 15 at the time of entry. Parents of these children were sent to another Vault. |
| Vault 51 | The ideal Overseer of this Vault was to be chosen by a ZAX AI. The AI started creating ‘crises’ to test resident suitability, which developed into lethal threats and then eventually led to the AI directly encouraging residents to kill each other. |
| Vault 63 | This Vault is completely inaccessible. |
| Vault 76 | Probably the best Vault in any Fallout game, Vault 76’s inhabitants became vital to the reconstruction of Appalachia and the eradication of the Scorched Plague. |
| Vault 79 | Intended to be the secure location for the United States gold reserves, a reactor leak ended up killing or turning most of the agents assigned to the Vault into Ghouls. Survivors were rescued by residents of Vault 76 when the latter tried to steal the gold reserves. |
| Vault 94 | This Vault was designed to test the viability of a pacifist belief system, with all inhabitants being members of a non-violent religious sect except one Vault-Tec employee. The Vault-Tec employee had a conscience and fessed up, urging the residents to arm themselves. They ignored the advice, eventually being massacred by outsiders. |
| Vault 96 | Staffed by only five residents, this Vault was created for the purpose of studying mutated wildlife and developing anti-mutant countermeasures. Sadly, the five residents were killed when they tried to disable the security system because it threatened to execute them for not meeting quotas. And you think your boss is bad. |
| Vault fixed by Penelope | Penelope Hornwright and her family found this Vault with a faulty door, but Penelope managed to repair it in exchange for her family being allowed inside. Sadly, she needed to remain outside in order to secure the door and ended up turning into a Ghoul as a result. |
| Bruiser’s Vault | Bruiser comes from this Vault. The residents used to play a sport similar to American Football. |
| Dino and Carla’s Vault | A low population Vault which was home to Dino and Carla until they left in 2103. |
| Soldier’s Vault | A Lieutenant and a Private were sent to this Vault before leaving and reaching Appalachia by 2103. |
| Vault-Tec University Simulation Vault | This Vault was a training facility for Vault-Tec employees. At the moment the bombs dropped, there were students inside who eventually starved to death due to lack of supplies. |
| The Whitespring Bunker | Originally intended to house members of Congress and the executive branch, the Enclave took over and killed all non-Enclave officials when they tried to enter. Eventually, this Vault became the Enclave’s regional headquarters. |
| Makeshift Vault | This Vault was built by Vault-Tec employees using stolen equipment and supplies after they discovered that they were considered ‘non-essential’. Eventually, this Vault was taken over by the Crater War Party and then taken over again by the Brotherhood First Expeditionary Force. |
Fallout TV series
If you’ve not seen the TV series in its entirety, I suggest you turn back now if you want to avoid spoilers!
Vaults 31, 32, and 33 interconnected Vaults. The brainchild of Bud Askins, who we come to learn was one of the executives at Vault-Tec before the bombs fell. Only two of these Vaults house a population during the show, while the other holds the cryogenically frozen bodies of the executives themselves.
Vault 4 is outside of these three interconnected vaults and is where Lucy and Maximus are given shelter during the series.
| Vault | Lore |
| Vault 4 | This Vault is governed entirely by scientists who adopted a policy of allowing survivors inside in order to use them as test subjects. These outsiders eventually broke free from captivity, overtook the Vault and it is now seen as a true refuge from the Wastes. |
| Vault 31 | Vault 31 is home to cryogenically frozen Vault-Tec executives, who would infiltrate the other two Vaults and indoctrinate them with Askins’ ideollogy. |
| Vault 32 | Vault 32 discovered the truth about Vault 31 and revolted, with the residents eventually dying due to infighting, suicide or starvation around 2294. The Vault was briefly taken over by Moldaver in order to infiltrate Vault 33. |
| Vault 33 | Vault 33 remains functional, going about their daily lives, following the orders of Bud Askins. |
During episode eight of the Fallout TV series, we are shown a map of all Vaults in the United States. On this map, there are 116 Vaults out of the 122 Vaults currently known within the canon of Fallout. One user over on Twitter took the time to plot all of the Vaults shown in the TV show on Google Earth, which I recommend checking out if you want to know more about the locations of the Vaults I’ve discussed here.
Here’s the Fallout TV show Vault map:
