Bethesda Softworks is considered by many in the gaming community to be one of the best current video game publishers. Creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and 2016’s Doom, there is one other role-playing series they are well-known for: Fallout, the retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic series in which players explore a nuclear wasteland populated by mutants, raiders, robots and armored paramilitary factions.
Though the series first debuted on PC in the late 90s, it wasn’t until 2008’s Fallout 3 that the series really skyrocketed with popularity, mainly due to the change from the turn-based isometric perspective of the original games to the more modern and fast-paced first and third-person shooter perspectives. Fallout 4 became one of the best-selling games of 2015, giving testament to the series’ lasting appeal.
Of course, this new change in gameplay didn’t affect the tone of the games. Even as the modern games add more changes to the gameplay, they still have everything that made the originals so great.
Fallout 4, the most recent title in the Fallout franchise, has plenty of its fair share of hidden messages and references scattered throughout the Commonwealth. Many of these are references to various science-fiction films, although Bethesda has sneaked in several references to some of their earlier games, and even a little to teaser to the mysterious upcoming game Fallout 76.
Suit up in some Power Armor and mark some points on your Pip-Boy, it’s time to check out 25 Hidden Messages in Fallout 4.
25 Manufactured By Weyland-Yutani
If you side with the Brotherhood of Steel, one of the Scribes, Scribe Haylen in the Cambridge Police Station, will ask you to go to some random location and retrieve some old tech, either a flux sensor, haptic drive or reflex capacitor. What this stuff actually does is a mystery, but you get 200 XP and 100 caps every time you do it, so who cares.
If you do start to get curious and inspect these pieces of tech for yourself, you’ll find on the back of the flux sensor a serial number labeled “CM-88B 180924609.” To the average gamer, this doesn’t mean anything, but to the hardcore sci-fi fan, they’ll notice that the number is actually a really obscure reference to the movie Alien. The spaceship in the movie, the USCSS Nostromo, has as its ship model number CM-88B, and 180924609 is its registration number.
So, what does this mean? Did the Nostromo crash into the Commonwealth at some point in the past and get stripped for parts? Or did Vault-Tec manufacture parts for spaceships, making Weyland-Yutani a part of Vault-Tec? Maybe there is a Xenomorph wandering around somewhere in the Commonwealth, hunting for prey. Or maybe someone at Bethesda just really likes Alien.
24 What Happened To Your Neighbors?
At the beginning of Fallout 4, while you’re still living an idyllic pre-War family life, a representative from Vault-Tec will conveniently come to visit so you and your family can be registered in the nearby Vault. Unfortunately for some of your neighbors, it appears the Vault-Tec representative didn’t finish making his way through the neighborhood before the bombs dropped.
If you take your time to examine some of the NPCs standing outside the fence surrounding the entrance of the Vault, see they are named Mr. and Mrs. Donoghue, Mr. and Mrs. Sumner, Mr. and Mrs. Parker, and Rosa and her son.
Flash forward to the post-apocalyptic Wasteland, and you’ll stumble across a pack of feral ghouls in a park nearby your old neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills. Unlike the other feral ghouls in the game, these will be named. As it turns out, all your old neighbors that didn’t make it into the Vault have mutated into mindless, vicious ghouls.
This horrible fate is actually hinted at when you first meet Codsworth, who’ll tell you he’s seen “Ms. Rosa’s boy running around in his Halloween costume.” Most players brush this off as Codsworth starting to malfunction after than a hundred years, but it turns out he actually mistook the neighbor boy’s ghastly appearance as some sort of costume. At least the Vault-Tec rep is still sane after being “ghoul-ified.”
23 Classic Pip-Boy Gaming
Fallout 4 is a pretty awesome example of how immersive and layered modern games are. Sometimes, though, some gamers want to try their hand at something simpler and straightforward. A game that doesn’t require a 20 minute tutorial. Now, you don’t have to step out of your HD gaming experience to try these games out, as located throughout the Commonwealth are six holotapes that let you play games right on your Pip-Boy or on any terminal.
In keeping with the retro theme of Fallout, all of these games are based on arcade and PC games from the late 1970s to mid-1980s. Some of these are pretty straightforward recreations. Atomic Command is Missile Command, Pipfall is Pitfall!, Zeta Invaders is Space Invaders, and Automatron (which comes with the DLC it’s named after) is based on Robotron: 2084. Red Menace is based on Donkey Kong, except instead of an ape, you’re trying to rescue a woman from communism.
The real masterpiece in all this, though, is Grognak & the Ruby Ruins, a text-based RPG based on the 1985 PC game The Bard’s Tale. This isn’t some watered down experience, either. You are given lots of options and decision-making opportunities, like choosing your party. This means you can play an RPG in your RPG. That’s some Inception level gaming right there!
22 You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
Exploring the Commonwealth, you’ll notice there are a lot of giant mutant monsters throughout the land. Mutant bears, giant radioactive crabs and nests of mole rats of unusually large size, just to name a few. And that’s not even getting into whatever the hell Deathclaws are supposed to be. It seems only fitting, then, that Bethesda include an Easter egg to one of the greatest creature features of all time: Jaws.
If you head west of the Beantown Brewery, you can find a boat with a sea creature on it.
This sea creature (which looks like a horribly mutated dolphin) has a skeleton sitting right in front of it holding a machete. The positioning of the two corpses and the skeleton’s machete and outfit (blue jacket, blue bandana) matches the famous death scene in Jaws where the shark emerges from the water and munches Quint, who tries vainly to defend himself with a machete. What’s more, if you go diving underneath the boat, you can find a diving cage resting on the river bed, just like the one Hooper enters when he tries to end the shark.
You can find plenty of sea creatures in the Commonwealth, but thankfully no live ones. The last thing any Wasteland survivor needs is to be scared of going in the water.
21 Toilet Humor
Surprisingly enough, Bethesda’s hidden movie references aren’t limited solely to classic science-fiction and horror movies. They seem to be fans of some contemporary comedies as well, such as 2012’s Ted, a comedy by Seth MacFarlane about a man (played by Mark Wahlberg) whose best friend is a talking, foul-mouthed teddy bear (who is, of course, voiced by MacFarlane).
Like MacFarlane’s modern Family Guy episodes, critical reception was mixed with this movie, but Bethesda seemed to like it enough, as they have hidden several teddy bears throughout the Commonwealth in some rather inappropriate situations. One teddy bear can be found in Back Street Apparel sitting on a toilet reading a newspaper. Two more teddy bears can be found in the Beantown Brewery and in the Med-Tek Research Facility having some fun complete with empty bottles nearby.
Some teddy bears look like they have criminal tendencies, as there’s a suspicious bear in the Fort Hagen satellite array selling what looks like contraband cigarettes. It seems someone had enough with these bears’ antics, as one can be found in the Super Duper Mart handcuffed and held prisoner inside a trash can.
You can either take these rude ’n’ crude teddy bears with you, or, if you don’t like Ted or Seth MacFarlane, you can just push them into that radioactive toilet water.
20 Beware Of Gary
Movies and classic video games aren’t the only things Bethesda like to reference. Part of the appeal for longtime Fallout fans is the hidden connections Bethesda likes to make to earlier games in the series. In the main entry point of Vault 75, players can find some wooden blocks spelling out “GARY.” If Fallout 4 is your first entry into the series, this might not mean anything to you, but for longtime fans it’s a reference to one of Vault-Tec’s classically twisted experiments.
In Fallout 3, players can investigate the remains of Vault 108 and discover that a series of cloning experiments were conducted on an inhabitant named Gary. Unfortunately for the scientists running the experiment, each subsequent clone started exhibiting more psychotic tendencies toward anyone who wasn’t a Gary. This eventually lead to a revolution in which the clones ended everyone else, and now these deranged clones (who only say “Gary”) attack anyone who isn’t a Gary.
While there are still plenty of Gary clones in Vault 108, it seems some of them escaped during the revolt, as the Vault door is found wide open and at least one Gary is found out in the Capital Wasteland. Is it possible that some of the clones may have made it as far as the Commonwealth? Better practice your “Gary” speech.
19 Where Everybody Knows Your Name
Making your way in the Wasteland today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away? If you’re near the Massachusetts State House, you can find the entrance to the Prost bar, where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.
Or they would be, if they weren’t all skeletons.
The Prost bar is based on the hit 1982-1993 sitcom Cheers, which just so happened to also be set in Boston. The Prost bar is a near exact recreation of the famous set from the TV show, if the bar in Cheers was hit by an atomic bomb and left in ruins for over a hundred years.
Fans can find several baseball posters adorning the walls of the bar, which is a reference to the bar owner Sam Malone having being a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. You can also find two skeletons sitting on the corner of the bar, with one of them wearing a postman’s outfit, a clear reference to the character Cliff Clavin. The other guy’s supposedly Norm, but he’s looking much thinner nowadays.
This is a neat Easter egg for fans of the show, but I can’t imagine how many fans of an 80s sitcom are going to be playing Fallout 4.
18 Experimenting With Crossovers
Of course, Fallout isn’t the only game Bethesda is known for, and they like to remind their fans every once in while with some hidden references to their other works. Of course, their second biggest series is undoubtedly The Elder Scrolls, with Skyrim being its most famous entry if only because it keeps getting rereleased on every modern system known to man.
Skyrim plays very much like Fallout, except with a change of setting from post-apocalyptic to sword and sorcery fantasy world, with the guns being replaced by magic spells. Because of the similar mechanics, it should be pretty easy to see some crossover in the games. Bethesda seems to agree, as onboard the Brotherhood of Steel’s airship The Prydwen, players can find some experimental plants that will look very familiar to Elder Scrolls fans.
The purple bioluminescent plant (nicknamed “Glowleaf” by the scribes) can be found in the biolab.
The experimental plant bears a striking resemblance to Nirnroot from The Elder Scrolls series. Could this mean that all those theories of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls taking place in the same timeline are true? Seeing as those theories directly contradict with the well-established lore of both franchises, probably not.
17 Golden Age Heroes
Traveling through the Commonwealth you’ll notice that many of the inhabitants have a very cynical attitude toward their post-apocalyptic way of life, with many of them falling victim to or becoming dangerous criminals. If only there were someone to defend Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
While you can’t dress up as Batman or Superman, a couple of other Golden Age heroes can be found in Hubris Comics, just west of Swan’s Pond. The building is infested with feral ghouls, but just consider it a hero’s test to see if you are worthy of donning the costumes of Grognak the Barbarian and the Silver Shroud.
Many longtime fans are familiar with comic book character Grognak (being a clear reference to Conan the Barbarian), but the Silver Shroud might be a more obscure reference to modern superhero fans. The Silver Shroud is actually based on 1930s pulp heroes like the Green Hornet and the Shadow (a precursor to Batman), mysterious vigilantes who wore similar costumes and used similar submachine guns.
Once you don the outfit, you can engage in side missions as the Silver Shroud. Now you too can strike fear in the hearts of Boston’s criminal underworld while spouting ridiculous catchphrases.
16 What Unfathomable Thing Lies Beneath?
While Bethesda has certainly shown that they are fans of the horror genre, movies aren’t the only thing they reference. They like to throw in references to classic literature, and one author keeps showing up again and again in their work: H.P. Lovecraft, author of the Cthulhu Mythos and the short story “The Dunwich Horror,” which was referenced in Fallout 3’s Dunwich Building.
Turns out they love the story so much they brought some of that cosmic horror back for Fallout 4 in the Dunwich Borers, a quarry that is home to some raiders with a vast labyrinth-like underground section. Like the Dunwich Building, players who explore the mines will experience flashbacks to before the Great War, confirming the paranormal nature of the site.
These flashbacks and the terminals suggest that some sort of supernatural force lies within the mines that causes negative effects on anyone who stays there for too long, which could explain the crazy raiders living there.
Finally, in the deepest part of the mine, players can find a sacrificial knife known as Kremvh’s Tooth and the partially unearthed face of what appears to be a colossal statue. Whatever the goal of this mining company was, it’s probably a good thing the world ended before it was completed.
15 Artistic Interpretations
It appears one reference to horror author H.P. Lovecraft wasn’t enough for Bethesda, as they’ve included another area filled with terrifying references to another one of his short stories. The Pickman Gallery can be found in Boston’s North End, and it is filled with raiders and mutilated corpses. Not only that, but to the immediate left of the entrance is a series of unsettling paintings that will leave even your most battle hardened companions disturbed.
Strangely enough, these “masterpieces” are not the work of raiders, but a man named Pickman.
It appears he was using some of the raiders for his “art supplies” and the rest have broken into his gallery for revenge. In front of the “all seeing eye” painting in the basement, you find a paint can and discover that he wasn’t using paint to get those rich shades of red.
As was said earlier, the gallery and Pickman himself are based on H. P. Lovecraft’s short story “Pickman’s Model,” in which an artist makes vividly detailed paintings of grotesquely hideous monsters. At the end of the story, it turns out that the monsters look so realistic because they are based on actual monsters he has seen and hunted down. While the paintings in Fallout 4 aren’t exactly realistic, there’s little doubt that they too are based on this Pickman’s “models.”
14 Fallout 4; Or, Life In The Irradiated Woods
The references H. P. Lovecraft make sense, given the horrific monstrosities you come face to face with in the Commonwealth. But what might be the most surprising literary reference in Fallout 4 is Walden Pond, a small lake located southwest of Concord. This location is famously associated with author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau who lived in a cabin by the lake from 1845 to 1847.
During this time, Thoreau investigated the principles of transcendentalism and reflected on the simplicity of living in nature.
He later wrote about his experience in a book called Walden, which is now considered one of the greatest works of transcendentalist philosophy, as well as a pretty handy manual for self-reliance in nature.
It may seem strange to have a reference to an old work of Western philosophy in a video game that lets you shoot lasers at giant crabs in nothing but your underwear, but it actually makes sense if you remember that Walden Pond is a real location in Massachusetts, where Fallout 4 takes place.
Ironically enough, before the Great War, Thoreau’s cabin was the subject of an audio tour sponsored by General Atomics International (complete with gift shop), which directly contradicts Thoreau’s message of leaving a consumerist lifestyle for a simple life in nature. At least the cabin and pond outlasted the corporations in the end.
13 The Skeleton In The Castle’s Walls
Though many players loathe the idea of siding with the Minutemen due to Preston’s constant pestering about settlements being in trouble, there is one bright side to joining them, and that’s getting to tour the Castle. The Castle is an old world military fortress turned headquarters for the Minutemen. It is pretty cool getting to tour a close approximation of a real historical site, and it gives a nice medieval feeling to the post-apocalyptic setting.
However, the Castle walls hold some terrible secrets. You can find one particularly grim secret when you’re wandering in the tunnels during the “Old Guns” quest. Toward the end of the tunnels, you’ll find a crate of Amontillado next to the body of General McGann. Opposite the drink you’ll find a skeleton entombed in a partially destroyed wall.
This is a clear reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado.” What makes this even more interesting is that Poe actually served at Fort Independence, the fort the Castle is based on. But then that begs the question, is Poe’s story just fiction, or is it based on something he witnessed at the Fort? There is an old rumor that a lieutenant who ended another officer in a duel was lured into the basement by his fellow soldiers and walled alive, but the folks in Independence have always claimed it to be a rumor.
12 What’s That Noodle Robot Saying?
Early in the game, players will visit Diamond City, a bustling city built in the remains of an old baseball stadium. There are several different shops you can visit to buy and sell items, and at the center of the market sits Power Noodles, a noodle bar run by Takahashi, a protectron who only speaks Japanese. In fact, he only says one line: “Nan-ni shimasho-ka?”
This is clearly the result of a malfunction that no one in Diamond City wants to bother repairing.
He seems to understand English well enough, given that you can buy and sell from him just as easily as any of the other vendors. But what is he saying? As it turns out, his line roughly translates to “What will you have?” This seems like a fairly normal greeting for a noodle vendor, but why is it in Japanese?
It turns out, the line is a reference to the iconic cyberpunk film Blade Runner, specifically the early scene in which Deckard is eating at the Noodle Bar. This isn’t the only reference to the groundbreaking sci-fi film, as both Nick Valentine and X6-88 have a lot in common with Deckard, a private investigator who might actually be an android who’s job is to hunt down other androids. Bethesda is clearly a fan, and it’s not hard to see why.
11 Nick Valentine’s Search For The Mysterious Stranger
If you have played any of the previous Fallout games, then you’ll probably be familiar with the Mysterious Stranger. If you acquire the perk, then there’s a chance that a man in a trench coat and fedora will suddenly appear and save you from your enemy. But as soon as you turn around to thank your guardian angel with a hand cannon, he’s vanished into thin air.
None of your companions ever seem to notice him either, at least until Fallout 4. If the Mysterious Stranger is summoned while you have Nick Valentine as a companion, he will immediately notice him and try to stop him in vain. It turns out the synth detective has been trying to arrest the Stranger for years, like he’s his own personal “One-Armed Man.”
Nick even has a file in his office filled with everything he knows about the Stranger.
Since the Mysterious Stranger always attacks the player’s enemies regardless of who they are, Nick’s worried he could be some cold-blooded criminal. His file mentions sightings from “the NCR all the way to the East Coast, stretching back decades,” referencing all the previous games he was in.
There’s lots of speculation as to how he keeps reappearing throughout the decades and how he is able to suddenly appear and disappear. Here’s hoping Nick someday finds the answers he’s looking for.
10 My Little Robot Pony
When it comes to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, you either loved it, hated it, or wondered why so many nerds on the internet were talking about a little girl’s cartoon. The popularity of the cartoon seems to have gone down in recent years, but that hasn’t stopped some fans from referencing the cartoon in some of the most unlikely of places, with one of those being Fallout 4.
If you visit Wilson Atomatoys Corporate HQ, you’ll find several broken Giddyup Buttercup robot ponies in one of the rooms. This doesn’t exactly make it a My Little Pony reference. Toy ponies have been around long before Hasbro ever came into existence. It’s the emails found in the development office terminals that link it to the cartoon.
In the emails, one of the toy designers suggests a way to increase sales by making variants of the robot ponies, including Pegasus and unicorn versions.
He also suggested making ponies with different colored coats and manes and even including unique “identifying marks” on each pony. Anyone who’s even casually familiar with My Little Pony will immediately recognize this as Hasbro’s marketing strategy to get girls to buy more ponies.
But why, of all places, was this included in Fallout 4? Maybe Bethesda wanted to cash in on the brony audience. Or maybe it’s a subtle reference to the popular My Little Pony crossover fanfic Fallout: Equestria.
9 The Boston Red Sox Haven’t Won The World Series Since 1918
With the Fallout universe taking place in an alternate timeline, quite a few historical events have been changed from what happened in the real world. Whether it’s due to constant cultural stagnation, scientific advancements in nuclear energy, or an ongoing anticommunist War that didn’t stay Cold for very long, many post-World War II historical events have been altered or just didn’t happen.
Many of these changes make sense to fit the setting, but sometimes, some events are changed that don’t really make sense.
One such change is regarding the Boston Red Sox’s World Series victories. As any baseball fan will tell you, the Red Sox have won three World Series titles since 1918 and are considered a consistently good team. However, due to some butterfly effect in the changes of history, the Red Sox have faced constant defeat at the World Series for 159 years!
According to an article found in a terminal in the Boston Bugle HQ, the Red Sox were actually well on their way to victory right before the bombs dropped, achieving three straight wins in a row. What makes this so tragic is the date of that final game took place on October 23rd, 2077, the same day the bombs dropped. Indeed, the writer claimed that the only thing that could stand in their way of victory would be “an act of God, or some obscene calamity of man.”
8 Benjamin Franklin’s Grave Site
There’s plenty of history in Boston, what with it being in one of the original 13 colonies. It’s only fitting then that some of that revolutionary history make its way into the world of Fallout 4. In fact, players can visit the Freedom Trail, a red bricked path that connects several historical locations in Boston. Along the path there are bronze seals that mark important historical locations, such as Boston Common, Faneuil Hill, and the Old State House in Goodneighbor.
Many of these locations have been converted into living spaces for the Commonwealth’s residents, both friendly and hostile. One of these locations, the Old Granary burying ground, has feral ghouls wandering around it. Once they’re taken care of, you can look around at the graves of famous revolutionary heroes. Unfortunately, most of the tombstones have had their names worn off, but there is one prominent obelisk at the back of the cemetery with the name “Franklin” clearly inscribed on it.
This is a very neat tribute to one of Boston’s most notable residents, but it’s not entirely historically accurate. In the real world, the obelisk actually marks the grave of Benjamin Franklin’s parents. Benjamin Franklin was actually buried alongside his wife Deborah in the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.
7 Codsworth Recognizes Famous Sci-Fi Names
As many Fallout 4 players now, Codsworth is unique among all the other NPCs in the game in that he will actually call you by your name if it’s one of the hundreds of names he is programmed to recognize. Most of the names he recognizes are the usual popular English names like Tom, Harry, and Sally. He can also recognize several immature and very inappropriate nicknames, if you don’t mind having your robot butler constantly insulting you.
What’s most interesting, though, is that Codsworth can recognize the names of several famous science-fiction characters. These names come from various movies and TV shows, including Mad Max (Rictus, Erectus, Imperator, Furiosa, Rockatansky, Toecutter), Star Trek (Kirk, McCoy, Picard), The Matrix (Neo, Trinity, Morpheus), Alien (Ripley, Weyland, Yutani, Hicks, Hudson, Dallas), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Buffy, Spike, Angel), and even Star Wars (Luke, Leia, Han, Solo).
Codsworth doesn’t just recognize movie and TV characters, as there’s also references to anime like Akira (Akira, Kaneda, Tetsuo), cartoons like Adventure Time (Finn, Jake, Sweetpea) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leo, Don, Mike, Raphael), and even Marvel comics (Tony, Stark, Steve, Rogers, Bruce, Banner).
You can also name yourself after previous Fallout characters, like Cheng, the Chinese communist leader, Moira from Fallout 3, and Grognak, as well as some of the designers behind Fallout, like Josh Sawyer.
6 Tremors In Dry Gulch
The DLC for Fallout 4 has been a bit of a mixed bag for some fans. Some of the DLC packs were focused more on providing more options for settlement building, which was great for those who were into that, but a waste of time and money for everyone else. There were only three add-ons that actually added new areas and story: Automatron, Far Harbor, and Nuka-World.
Nuka-World was by far the most interesting of the DLC, as players explored a Coca-Cola themed Disneyland overrun by mutants and warring raider factions. While there are plenty of references to Disneyland itself, with the Hidden Cappies being a stand-in for the Hidden Mickeys, as well as references to several urban legends surrounding the park, one of the most interesting references is actually in the Western themed Dry Gulch area.
When you first step into the Wild West town, you’ll no doubt be attacked by Bloodworms, giant mutant worms that burrow through the ground at high speeds and lunge out at prey. It is possible to avoid their attacks by staying away from the ground and walking on rocks and wooden surfaces. The Bloodworms are clearly based on the “Graboids” from the Tremors film series. The Western themed area also bears a striking resemblance to the Nevadan town from the film, and one of the corpses even has a note that mentions hearing “Tremors or something.”
