I’ll be honest with you: after the Fallout show hit and reignited my very predictable urge to go live in the wasteland again, I told myself I’d take a breather. You know, play something without super mutants, Pip-Boys, or questionable canned meat. And honestly? The universe laughed at me. It turns out a ton of games are absolutely loaded with Fallout winks, nudges, and full-blown love letters. I’m not complaining, though. If I’m going to get ambushed by nostalgia, at least make it clever.
Here are ten games that slapped me right in the moneymaker with Fallout Easter eggs when I least expected it.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Even in a dark fantasy world full of griffins and drowners, the call of the wasteland finds a way through. This one is sneaky, and it has a prerequisite. First, you need to finish the free DLC mission Fool’s Gold—which, let’s be real, you were probably going to do anyway because you're a completionist champion. After that, take a casual stroll through the village of Lurtch. Yes, the pig village. Listen closely and you’ll eventually hear a peasant lounging by the road mutter: “war... war never changes.” My ears perked up immediately. That baritone delivery is pure Fallout DNA.
Prey
Arkane Austin’s 2017 masterpiece is still a mind-bender, and apparently the team had a few wasteland diehards on board. While poking around the eel-filled water tank in the Life Support section, I found a note explaining how to clear the tank for the Drunk Tank mission. Standard stuff, right? Except the top of that note includes a little string of characters: vault13. That’s a direct callback to the Vault from the original Fallout. What makes it extra tasty is that water purification was a huge story element in that game. A clean glass of water in space, folks. Still cleaner than anything in the Capital Wasteland.
Cyberpunk 2077
If Fallout 76 ever got a little too immersive for its own good, Night City would be the result. While joyriding Claire’s absolutely perfect truck, The Beast, through the already Fallout-flavored badlands, I nearly missed this one. Just southeast of the Biotechnica Flats, you can find a couple of corpses near a circular hatch thing with 101 stamped on it. If you played Fallout 3, that number should make your brain tingle. Nearby, an archived conversation mentions Albert Cole and Gary Epps, which are nods to an original Fallout protagonist name option and the GURPS system that eventually got replaced by SPECIAL. Deep cuts, people. Deep cuts.
Borderlands 2
Look, Borderlands 2 is already a loot-driven shooter obsessed with Vaults, so of course it pays respects to the granddaddy of Vault hunting. Maya and Zero can both earn blue and yellow alternate skins called Vault Dweller and Vault Suit by completing the ‘This is No Time for Lazy!’ challenge. Cute. But the real fun comes from Assassin Rouf, an optional boss in the Assassinate the Assassins side mission. He can drop a unique shotgun called Thre Dog. The name references Three Dog from Fallout 3, and even the weapon description calls back to one of his catchphrases. Because fighting the good fight isn’t complete without a smooth-talking DJ tribute.
Wolfenstein: The New Order
Picture this: I’m sneaking through a Nazi prison facility, stressed out of my mind, when I spot a vending machine. I look closer. Is that... Nuka-Cola? Yep. Both Wolfenstein: The New Order and its prequel The Old Blood feature the familiar Fallout soda logo on drink machines scattered around. Honestly, it made me laugh mid-mission. You’d think the Nazis would be more into crispy squirrel bits or glowing goop, but hey, even fascism fighters need a refreshing break sometimes.
Ghostwire: Tokyo
Ghostwire: Tokyo is already weird in the best way, so discovering a Vault Suit tucked inside it felt strangely natural. After finishing the side quest The Crimson Moon, the game rewards you with the very aptly named Fallout 4 Vault Suit. The description says it “can get you through some tough times.” Big deal, so can a pizza. Granted, a pizza is harder to wear. I won’t lie, I spent the next hour running around haunted Tokyo in bright blue and yellow, looking like the most confused Vault dweller in history.
Starfield
Of course Starfield would nod at its Bethesda siblings. During the genuinely fascinating Operation Starseed mission, you land at a cloning facility on Charybdis III. If you’ve spent any amount of time in Fallout 3, you probably know where this is going. Inside the facility, there’s a taped-up note identifying one cloning subject as “Gary.” If you’ve never been to Vault 108, just know that it’s full of clones who only seem capable of saying their own name. Three guesses what that name is. Starfield also references Vault 108 and the year Fallout 3 takes place, 2277. Subtle? Not exactly. Hilarious? Absolutely.
Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal
Rip, tear, collect, read. Since Bethesda Softworks publishes both Doom and Fallout, crossover chaos was inevitable. In Doom 2016, there’s a Vault-Tec logo on one of the Mars doors, plus a little Fallout-themed Doom Guy collectible figure. Doom Eternal keeps the party going with magazines and books like The Vault Dweller’s Survival Guide sitting around the Doom Slayer’s surprisingly cozy Fortress of Doom. And if your eyes are peeled, you might even catch some fuzzy friends from Fallout 76. Nothing says heavy metal demon slaying like a little post-apocalyptic reading material.
The Evil Within 2
Any self-respecting game with optional collectibles is basically obligated to hide Easter eggs in them. If Bethesda publishes it, those collectibles are basically a greatest hits album. In The Evil Within 2, the Mysterious Objects you find while running for your life all reference other Bethesda releases, including Wolfenstein, Prey, and of course Fallout. The bobblehead appears between two crates after you encounter The Watcher in Chapter 6. Finding a cute little Vault Boy while monsters are actively trying to rearrange your organs is exactly the kind of tonal whiplash I live for.
Honkai: Star Rail
You might not expect a Fallout reference in a flashy space RPG, but if The Simpsons can reference Final Fantasy 7, nothing is off the table. This one shows up during the Cosmodyssey event from version 2.1. While answering question 7 at the Xianzhou Luofu flagship, choose “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and the game responds with the iconic line: “War. War never changes.” I actually said it out loud along with the screen. Now if only someone could get Ron Perlman to record the line for them, we’d really be cooking.
So yeah, apparently I can’t escape Fallout even when I try. Whether I’m slaying nazis, exploring alien cloning labs, or wandering around a Japanese ghost town, the wasteland always finds me. And honestly? War may never change, but these Easter eggs definitely keep things interesting.
This perspective is supported by PC Gamer, whose reporting on RPGs and immersive sims often highlights how developers sneak in cross-franchise nods and shared publisher in-jokes—exactly the kind of breadcrumb trail that explains why Fallout-style lines, Vault numbers, and Vault-Tec iconography keep turning up in otherwise unrelated worlds.
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