Vault Boy is the
mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...
of the ''
Fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
'' media franchise. Created by staff at
Interplay Entertainment
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca ...
, the original owners of the ''Fallout''
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
(IP), Vault Boy was introduced in 1997's ''
Fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
'' as an advertising
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
representing Vault-Tec, a fictional
megacorporation
Megacorporation, mega-corporation, or megacorp, a term originally coined by Alfred Eichner in his book ''The Megacorp and Oligopoly: Micro Foundations of Macro Dynamics'' but popularized by William Gibson, derives from the combination of the prefi ...
that built a series of specialized
fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
During ...
s throughout the United States prior to the
nuclear holocaust
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...
that sets up the world state of the ''Fallout'' universe. Within the video game series, Vault Boy serves as a generic representation of the player character's
statistical information within
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
(UI) menus, and is a recurring element in Vault-Tec products found throughout the fictional ''Fallout'' universe.
Vault Boy's design was developed by
Leonard Boyarsky
Leonard Boyarsky is an American computer game designer and visual artist. He is one of the key designers of the video games ''Fallout'' and ''Diablo III''.
Early life
After he earned a bachelor's degree in Illustration (at Cal State Fullerton ...
, who drew inspiration from 1950s films as well as the visual aesthetic of the economics-themed board game
''Monopoly''. Vault Boy is a ubiquitous feature in promotional material and merchandising for the ''Fallout''
brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
, and is regarded by critics to be one of the most recognizable elements of the franchise and the embodiment of its
sardonic
To be sardonic is to be disdainfully or cynically humorous, or scornfully mocking.
A form of wit or humour, being sardonic often involves expressing an uncomfortable truth in a clever and not necessarily malicious way, often with a degree of sk ...
,
retrofuturistic
Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipatin ...
themes.
Concept and design
Vault Boy was unnamed in 1997's ''
Fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
'', although the game's instruction manual refers to the character as Vault-Man. He was created by
Leonard Boyarsky
Leonard Boyarsky is an American computer game designer and visual artist. He is one of the key designers of the video games ''Fallout'' and ''Diablo III''.
Early life
After he earned a bachelor's degree in Illustration (at Cal State Fullerton ...
, who originally thought of him as the "skill guy" when he developed the character's first piece of concept art. Vault Boy was partly based on
Rich Uncle Pennybags
Rich Uncle Pennybags is the mascot of the board game of ''Monopoly (game), Monopoly''. He is depicted as a portly old man with a moustache who wears a morning suit with a bowtie and top hat. In large parts of the world he is known, additionally or ...
' aesthetic from the ''Monopoly'' board game, and Boyarsky came up with the idea and design for the Vault Boy “cards”, which is intended to evoke the feel of ''Monopoly'' cards by showing the character engaged in a variety of activities in humorous ways. Vault Boy was drawn for ''Fallout'' by George Almond for the first few cards and by Tramell Ray Isaac who finalized the look of the character. The character is inspired by films made during the 1950s, in particular the cartoon character Bert the Turtle from the 1952
civil defense
Civil defense ( en, region=gb, civil defence) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from man-made and natural disasters. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, miti ...
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...
live-action
Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ga ...
social guidance film
Social guidance films constitute a genre of educational films attempting to guide children and adults to behave in certain ways. Originally produced by the U.S. government as "attitude-building films" during World War II, the genre grew to be a co ...
''
Duck and Cover
"Duck and cover" is a method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear explosion. Ducking and covering is useful in offering a degree of protection to personnel located outside the radius of the nuclear fireball but still within su ...
'', and parodies the dualities of cheery optimism and sub-surface paranoia from that era.
Brian Menze was responsible for all Vault Boy images drawn for 1998's ''
Fallout 2
''Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game'' is a 1998 role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Productions. It is a sequel to ''Fallout (video game), Fallout'' (1997), featuring similar graphics and ...
'' and 2010's ''
Fallout: New Vegas'', and he followed Isaac's art style for the character. On the other hand, the developers of the 2001 spin-off title ''
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel'',
Micro Forté
Micro Forté Pty Ltd is an Australian electronic entertainment company with development studios in Canberra and Sydney. Founded in 1985 by John De Margheriti at a time when there was little game development presence in Australia, Micro Forté h ...
, confused Vault Boy with another in-universe element called the
Pip-Boy
The Pip-Boy is a fictional wearable computer in the post-apocalyptic ''Fallout'' video game franchise. Manufactured in-universe by RobCo Industries prior to the devastating nuclear Great War, it is capable of numerous functions depending on the ...
.
As "Pipboy", the character's iteration in ''Tactics'' as well as the traditional series of caricatures representing skills and perks were drawn by Ed Orman. Micro Forté's choice of name for the character was retained by ex-Interplay writer
Chris Avellone
Chris Avellone is an American video game designer and comic book writer. He worked for Interplay and Obsidian Entertainment before working as a freelancer. He is best known for his work on role-playing video games such as '' Planescape: Tormen ...
when he developed and self-published the ''Fallout Bible'' in 2002.
Commenting on the confusion, Boyarsky clarified in a 2004 interview that "Vault Boy" was always intended to be the character's name, while the Pip Boy is supposed to be "the little guy on your Pip Boy interface" which is based on the
Bob's Big Boy mascot.
Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited, and in 1999 became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its ...
, the developers of the franchise beginning with ''Fallout 3'', established the use of the name "Vault Boy" for the mascot character following their acquisition of the franchise in the mid-2000s.
Natalia Smirnova drew the character for ''Fallout 3''.
As the mascot of ''Fallout'', Vault Boy is frequently used to convey the series' "often goony, occasionally nasty sense of humor".
Orman's favorite illustration of the character from ''Tactics'' was for the special damage effect of "immobile", where he still wears a "happy, devil-may-care grin" even though his body is horribly mutilated.
During the development of ''Fallout 2'', Menze was asked to come up with a perk illustration for the “Childkiller” reputation that would be bestowed on the player character should he or she happen to kill a child character, accidentally or otherwise. Menze finalized an image of a perky Vault Boy kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach, and reasoned that his approach was the least offensive way to present an illustration of a literal child killer. Both Menze and the designer who requested it later realized that it was inappropriate and agreed not to use it, which became the only Vault Boy image to ever be cut from ''Fallout 2''.
Description
Background
![Vault-Tec Logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Vault-Tec_Logo.svg)
Vault Boy is the mascot character of the Vault-Tec Corporation, also referred to as Vault-Tec Industries, appearing in their adverts, manuals, products and training films. Although Vault-Tec's slogan, “revolutionising safety for an uncertain future”, suggests a company with people's best interests in mind, it is consistently portrayed as an
unscrupulous corporation.
Within series lore, Vault-Tec was contracted by the U.S. government for a nationwide project in 2054 to build
fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
During ...
s known as "Vaults" for the American public in anticipation of possible nuclear war with its enemies. Each Vault is self-sufficient and theoretically capable of sustaining their inhabitants indefinitely; however, the Vault project was never intended as a viable method of repopulating the United States in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Instead, most Vaults were secret, unethical social experiments, designed to determine the effects of different environmental and
psychological
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...
conditions on their inhabitants. Within this context, Vault Boy is cynically deployed as misdirection to reassure unsuspecting individuals who may be repeatedly manipulated and endangered by experiments which are hidden behind the front of benign fallout shelters.
Appearances
Vault Boy is presented as a young male Caucasian cartoon character, dressed in a blue and yellow jumpsuit, with blond hair styled in a distinctive swirl. His default expression is a wide beaming smile, but has been shown to make other facial expressions as well. His signature pose is to stand with a hand extended in a thumbs up, sometimes with one eye closed. The character's in-game function is to communicate information to players: for example, he is used to represent the player in ''
Fallout 4
''Fallout 4'' is a 2015 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fourth main game in the Fallout (series), ''Fallout'' series and was released worldwide on November 10, 2015, for P ...
'' perk tree menu, or in a video explaining the SPECIAL
character statistics system. Vault Boy also appears in illustrations for achievements and trophies for the video games developed following Bethesda's acquisition of the ''Fallout'' IP. Vault Boy is sometimes presented as a female equivalent, Vault Girl, who is also blonde and wears similar attire.
In 2015's ''
Fallout Shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
During ...
'', Vault Boy's distinct art style is employed for the randomly generated Vault Dwellers which players manage in the game.
A
customizable skin for the
Mii Gunner character based on Vault Boy was added to ''
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'' is a 2018 crossover fighting video game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the fifth installment in the '' Super Smash Bros.'' series, succeed ...
'' via
downloadable content
Downloadable content (DLC) is additional content created for an already released video game, distributed through the Internet by the game's publisher. It can either be added for no extra cost or it can be a form of video game monetization, enablin ...
on June 22, 2020.
Cultural impact
![Fallout_4_at_Gamescom_2015_(20402858326)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Fallout_4_at_Gamescom_2015_%2820402858326%29.jpg)
Critics noted that Vault Boy has achieved a level of cultural impact and viral recognition outside of the character's original context, which was not anticipated by former Interplay staff such as
Tim Cain
Timothy Cain is an American video game developer best known as the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of the 1997 computer game ''Fallout''. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of a ...
and
Feargus Urquhart
Feargus Urquhart is a Scottish-American video game designer and CEO of Obsidian Entertainment.
Career
Urquhart is best known for his work at Interplay Entertainment, particularly as leader of Black Isle Studios, Interplay's internal role-pl ...
during the franchise's early years.
This is in spite of the fact that Vault Boy is not a character the player can encounter in the ''Fallout'' universe.
Jeremy Peel from ''
PCGamesN
''PCGamesN'' is a British online video game magazine focusing on PC gaming and hardware. It has a full-time team of over a dozen writers and is the oldest owned-and-operated site within publishing group Network N.
History
Parent company Netw ...
'' claimed that Vault Boy, as a mascot for the series' "sardonic, faux-1950s imagery", has become "as recognisable as
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...
".
''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' published an article in 2010 which ranked Vault Boy among the 50 greatest video game characters.
[ '']Time Magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
'' named Vault Boy the third most influential video game character of all time, lauding his "gloriously absurd and irreverent spectrum of dispositions and postures, from hyperbolic simpering to grisly dismemberments", which made him an icon of surreal humour
Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Portrayals of surrea ...
in a similar manner as characters from the ''Monty Python
Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...
'' series.
A fan theory about Vault Boy was that the character's signature pose is a discreet method to determine whether an individual is within the fallout radius of a nuclear explosion and thus safe from radiation or otherwise. Former Interplay staff, such as Brian Fargo
Frank Brian Fargo (born December 15, 1962) is an American video game designer, producer, programmer and executive, and founder of Interplay Entertainment, inXile Entertainment and Robot Cache.
Biography
Early life
A descendant of the family t ...
and Tramell Ray Isaac, insisted that the character is not hiding a secret meaning and is simply giving a show of encouragement, though it may not necessarily be sincere in nature.
Analysis
Writing for the 2017 publication ''100 Greatest Video Game Characters'', Rowan Derrick described Vault Boy as both a symbol of an idyllic world before nuclear war and a constant reminder of that world's failures; a concept that encompasses the promise of a pseudo-1950s nuclear powered paradise even though it directly contradicts the in-universe post-apocalyptic wasteland; and an illustration of the tension between humanity's penchant for harming each other and an ambivalence towards a technologically advanced civil society. Matthew Byrd from ''Den of Geek
''Den of Geek'' is a US and UK-based website covering entertainment with a focus on pop culture
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gan ...
'' drew comparisons between Vault Boy and Miss Minutes
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise features many fictional elements including locations, weapons, and artifacts. While many of these features are based on elements that originally appeared in the American comic books publishe ...
from the Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films produced by Marvel Studios. The films are based on characters that appear in American comic books published by ...
, citing them as notables examples of "the Smiling Faces of Bureaucracy, Corruption, and Propaganda", where storytellers co opt retrofuturistic designs to serve as a form of social commentary.[ Vivian Asimos noted the popular use of Vault Boy's signature pose in sarcastic circumstances to be a notable example of video game content forming the backbone of numerous ]internet meme
An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
s due to its participatory nature.
References
External links
Vault Boy
at the ''Fallout'' Wiki
{{Fallout
Advertising characters
Bethesda characters
Corporate mascots
Fallout (series)
Fictional survivalists
Male characters in advertising
Child characters in advertising
Male characters in video games
Mascots introduced in 1997
Video game characters introduced in 1997
Video game mascots
Video game memes