The 10 Best Easter Eggs in Amazon Prime’s Fallout Season 1

Video games and Easter eggs go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or like gamers and sleepless nights. Who among us hasn’t spent hours chasing down every achievement, testing for iconic glitches and exploits, or trekking to the furthest empty corner of the map to see one small gag a bored developer snuck in?

It makes sense, then, that Amazon Prime’s live-action adaptation of Fallout would be filled with its own Easter eggs and references to its digital source material. The world has to be fully fleshed out before it can be properly destroyed, after all. One of the hallmarks of the post-apocalyptic game series has always been its environmental storytelling (and we love a good Bethesda skeleton).

With that in mind, let’s crawl out through the fallout, baby, and dig up the greatest Easter eggs and references from Fallout season 1!

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Please Stand By

From the Vault Boy and his reassuring thumbs-up to the imposing face of the T-60 Power Armor, the world of Fallout is filled with iconic images, characters, and designs. Chief among them for those who have played the video games is the “Please Stand By” reel screen, frequently used as a loading buffer when firing up the game title.

When the projector fails during the raider attack in Vault 33, a large repeating image of the exact “Please Stand By” graphic from the games takes over where the pleasant rural skies once were. It’s another great piece of world building and fan service in an already robust premiere, reassuring fans that this Fallout adaptation is carefully constructed with love for all parts of the franchise.

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Hacking Computer Terminals

We hope you leveled up your Intelligence skill for this one! When Norm MacLean needs to hack a Vault Overseer’s computer terminal, he is given a digital screen of complex code and possible passwords to guess from. With a limited number of attempts, he has to pick words and puzzle out the correct password based on the location of similar letters across words — the Wasteland version of Wordle.

To see the RobCo Terminal hacking minigame appear almost exactly as it does in the video game titles is an awesome Easter egg, even for fans who have been frustrated by locked-out terminals and failed guesses. We’ve all been there, you’re in a safe space.

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Atomic Command Minigame

Pip-Boy personal computers are complex machines. They have Geiger counters, flashlights, maps, and even built-in radios! But fans may have spotted Norm MacLean using his for another popular Vault dweller pastime — playing Atomic Command.

This holotape game appears in Fallout 4 (the video game installment the adaptation seems to be most closely inspired by), and its gameplay and name are a reference to Atari’s Missile Command game. Players must save eight American locations from falling nukes by shooting them from the ground.

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The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. System

Every RPG has its own stat system for character creation and Fallout is no different. Player characters have seven attributes, called your S.P.E.C.I.A.L., to distribute points between. They stand for:

• Strength (for combat and carrying)
• Perception (for situational awareness and sight)
• Endurance (for health and radiation resistance)
• Charisma (for conversation skills)
• Intelligence (for science-based skills and experience points)
• Agility (for speed and action points)
• Luck (for everything else!)

At the start of the series, Lucy MacLean’s character introduction gives us a sense of where her S.P.E.C.I.A.L. abilities lie, with gymnastics for agility, riflery for perception, and intermediate phys-ed likely for strength. She also specifically names her skills in science, repairs, and speech (likely intelligence and charisma-based).

In addition, a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. poster can be seen beside Norm MacLean at another point during the series, mirroring the many “You’re Special!” ads and paraphernalia players can find in the games. Finally, the Vault Boy bobbleheads, which are known for giving players a free point boost in a corresponding S.P.E.C.I.A.L., are littered throughout the first season.

Playable Characters

Lucy, Maximus, and the Ghoul have even been added into auxiliary game systems for Fallout, including the mobile game Fallout Shelter and the tabletop roleplaying title by Modiphius — in each of these iterations, they are given their own official stat blocks!

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Nuke-Proof Fridges

This one is an Easter egg of an Easter egg; a reference to a franchise beyond the Wasteland’s boundaries. Many Fallout titles have refrigerators in them as a part of the ruined landscape of post-war America. But fridges have also become a vessel for pop culture references thanks to Fallout: New Vegas‘ Wild Wasteland perk.

This humorous ability gives players a chance to see strange things appear throughout the Mojave, including a fridge with a suave gambler hat and skeleton inside. This reference to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has become somewhat of a series mainstay. Players will also often find living individuals trapped in refrigerators as part of various side quests.

Amazon’s Fallout series shows young Maximus surviving the blast that decimated Shady Sands by hiding inside of a milk bottle refrigerator as a clear nod to these mighty appliances and their Wasteland durability.

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A Broken Water Chip

The original Fallout game begins with your quest kicking off as a result of a faulty water chip inside Vault 13. The main player is sent out to find a replacement chip (located in Vault 12), but beyond its initial MacGuffin purpose, it’s not vital to the remaining adventure.

When trouble sets in with Vaults 32 and 33 following the raider attack, the Vault dwellers do their best to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. However, one individual makes note of a malfunctioning water chip inside one of the 31-32-33 triad in a fantastic nod to the tech failure that started the series.

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Mr. House Always Wins

Less of an Easter egg and more likely foreshadowing, the CEO of tech corporation RobCo (or on his placard, Rob-Co) makes an appearance as part of the Vault-Tec board deciding on the Vault experiments in the season finale.

Fallout players will undoubtedly recognize Mr. House, whose presence looms large in the New Vegas region of the franchise. He is the founder of the multibillion dollar robotics and software company responsible for most of the world’s computers, including Pip-Boys, as well as robotic defense systems like Assaultrons, turrets, Eyebots, and more.

Mr. House is confirmed to reappear in season 2 of the series, as the characters trek towards New Vegas in the Mojave.

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Combat-Enhancing Chems

Fallout players will know that in addition to traditional leveling and perk advancement, there are ways to get an edge in battle in the form of chems. Chems are this world’s equivalent of drugs, typically including various psychoactive substances (like Mentats) and combat enhancers (like Psycho and Buffout). They’re highly addictive and have drawbacks to excessive use.

In the series premiere, raiders attack Vault 33 in a bloody display of force. Fans can spot one of the raiders clearly using a Jet inhaler during the battle to enhance his reaction time — in the games, Jet boosts the user’s speed and slows down time around them for more accurate, calculated strikes.

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Assaultrons, Super Mutants, and Deathclaws, oh my!

Lucy, the Ghoul, and Maximus each encounter their fair share of the Wasteland’s worst, most monstrous mutations — from the finger-mouthed Gulper to those pesky Radroaches, familiar foes from the video game are abundant. But outside of active combat, there are plenty of appearances by other notable in-game enemies who are out of commission.

When Lucy emerges from Vault 33 for the first time, a rusted Assaultron unit can be seen in the sands. When Wilzig is introduced within the Enclave, a blanketed figure on a stretcher is wheeled past by other scientists, looking suspiciously like a Super Mutant’s massive green hand. And finally, the season finale brought fans a glimpse of a Deathclaw’s skull — and we’re all hoping to see a live version of the Wasteland’s most imposing enemy in the next season!

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Brand-Name Recognition

The world of Fallout is filled with corporate branding in a punchy, colorful retrofuturistic style (when it’s not sun-bleached and radiation-burned). Name brand household goods and resources from the video game appear throughout the first season of the show, stocking shelves and survival packs with snacks like Yum Yum Deviled Eggs and junk like Abraxo Drain Cleaner in the Super Duper Mart.

And of course, you can’t zap your thirst in the Wasteland with anything other than a refreshing rocket-shaped glass of Nuka Cola, whose vibrant branding, bottles, and caps are abundant post-apocalypse. Think of all the scrap components you could collect!

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Honorable Mention: The Wasteland’s Golden Rule

Not so much of an Easter egg as a break through the 4th wall — the Fallout series on Amazon Prime clearly knows its source material. It honors it and celebrates it, and it isn’t afraid to poke fun at it. When the Ghoul delivers the Wasteland’s golden rule to Lucy MacLean — Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every time — it’s a hilarious nod to the reality of playing any title in the hit RPG series.

You’re never simply walking from Point A to Point B in a Fallout game. Side quests, faction squabbles, and charging headfirst into battle with enemies much bigger than you form the basis of every player’s true Wasteland experience. Yes, the main quest is compelling, but you will get sidetracked. Every. Damn. Time. The best you can do is enjoy the wild ride and try not to die.

(It took this writer 20 hours of gameplay to get to Diamond City in Fallout 4 — that’s only the second Main Quest objective!)

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There are plenty of other Easter eggs — and foreshadowing for season 2 — to be found packed into every episode of Amazon’s Fallout. Did we miss your favorite? Shout out what other exciting details you spotted with your enhanced Perception skill!

Share your Fallout finds at side.show/geekgroup or in the Sideshow Social Network. And as always, don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!