The 10 Most Disturbing Vaults In The Fallout Series

Summary

• The Fallout series is known for many things, and one of the main things is how many horrific Vault experiments existed once the bombs fell.
• We've gone ahead and collected the Vaults that would be an absolute nightmare to find yourself in.
• For context, one of them turned the Vault Dwellers into Super Mutants, and it isn't even the worst Vault around.

One of the things the Fallout series is best known for is its Vaults, impenetrable bomb shelters that guarantee safety from the apocalypse of nuclear war. The only problem is that many of them were used to run secret experiments on the inhabitants.

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Some of the experiments were a guaranteed death sentence, while others were likely to drive anyone inside the Vault mad. With the success of the new Amazon Prime Video TV series we thought we'd compile a list of the absolute worst Fallout Vaults you could find yourself in, just so you can appreciate that you haven't.

We've ranked this list sequentially, picking a collection of the worst Vaults and then ordering them numerically.

10 Vault-Tec University Simulation Vault

Unlucky Timing

The Simulation Vault was intended to be a fully working replica, used for training Vault-Tec employees on how a Vault would function and experiments would be carried out. It also meant that the students could be experimented on during their training.

During one such training exercise was when the bombs fell, meaning everyone inside was truly sealed. The experiment running at the time was one that replaced the food with a paste that caused heart attacks. With no viable food source, you can imagine how things played out for the people trapped inside.

9 Vault 12

Vault-Tec Lied

Vault 12 was almost what a Vault was promised to be, with one key exception. The door didn't actually seal properly, allowing radiation to leak inside. This was all part of Vault-Tec's plan to study long-term radiation exposure.

Many of the residents became feral ghouls, but if you know anything about radiation poisoning, you'll know that no one inside met a good fate. Vault 12 was featured in the original Fallout, but is still one of the worst ones in the series.

8 Vault 22

Not Quite Clickers

Vault 22 is a tragedy. Populated by scientists researching flora, they were mostly interested in things like increasing crop yields or making plants that could better survive harsh conditions. Unfortunately, one of their areas of study was a fungal spore.

If you've guessed that the fungal spores infected them all and turned them into monsters, you're absolutely right. Considering they all underwent a severe illness before dying and becoming controlled by spores, this is one of the last Vaults you'd want to find yourself in.

7 Vault 51

Don't Trust AI

Most Vaults are run by an Overseer, and Vault 51 might have ended up the same. Unfortunately, an AI was tasked with selecting an Overseer from the population, with no clear method or metrics.

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The AI created crisis after crisis in the Vault to try and force a leader to rise up, but all it achieved was death and suffering. Being trapped in a Vault with an AI who is treating you like a pawn, constantly pushing you to the edge, is no way to go.

6 Vault 56

No Laughing Matter

Vault 56 might not be the most horrific one, but life there would certainly be torturous. All entertainment materials were removed from this Vault, except those of one especially bad comedian. Can we transfer to another Vault, please?

Interestingly, Vault 55 had no entertainment materials whatsoever, and Vault 56 was predicted to experience societal collapse before it. It goes to show that bad media is worse than no media.

5 Vault 77

One Man And A Crate Of Puppets

Vault 77 only had one inhabitant, although if you asked him it had more. One man was sealed inside with no one for company until he found a crate full of puppets. Driven mad by isolation he took to talking to the puppets, and believing they spoke back.

Although he would leave his Vault and become a feared figure, it's awful to imagine how lonely he must have been. Can any of us say we wouldn't also start acting out scenes with our puppet pals, forgetting what's real and what's not?

4 Vault 87

Super No Thanks

Few Vaults were as stereotypically "mad science" as Vault 87, dedicated to testing the Forced Evolutionary Virus on poor unwitting Vault dwellers. The FEV transformed them into Super Mutants, which you'll know as the hulking enemies found through the games.

Aside from how unethical this is, the process of becoming a Super Mutant is meant to be extremely painful. That's saying nothing of the mental trauma that would go along with the transformation. We'll opt out, thank you, nuclear explosion instead please.

3 Vault 92

The Sound Of Madness

Advertised as a safe haven for gifted musicians, Vault 92 was in fact a white noise experiment in how people could be influenced subliminally. It was pumped into every part of the Vault constantly, gradually driving all the residents into a murderous rage.

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This really is one of the most vile Vault experiments, robbing people of their humanity and their agency. It's also baffling that they chose gifted musicians for this when anyone would have done, it's a needlessly cruel addition to the experiment.

2 Vault 108

Gary

Everyone who played Fallout 3 remembers Vault 108, filled with violent clones of someone called 'Gary'. What you might not remember is that the Vault had more to it beyond the cloning experiment.

Vault-Tec deliberately selected an Overseer likely to die in just a few years, and left almost all other positions unfilled. They also ensured that the Vault wouldn't be able to produce enough power for itself. How this all played out exactly isn't known, but the escaped Gary's paint an ominous picture.

1 Vault 112

Virtual Hell

The stuff of nightmares, Vault 112 was constructed so that the residents could spend their time there uploaded to an idyllic virtual reality. That might sound a lot better than living in a cramped underground bunker, but things took a predictably dark turn.

Dr. Stanislaus Braun had full control over the virtual reality and everything that happened in it. Rather than enjoy an eternity of living whatever life he could dream up, he dedicated himself to relentlessly torturing the other inhabitants, killing them again and again in endless nightmare scenarios. This would go on for hundreds of years without interference from the outside world, making this the worst of all Vaults to end up in.

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