Description
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.[14][9] Within series lore, Vault-Tec was contracted by the U.S. government for a nationwide project in 2054 to build fallout shelters 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 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.[9][15]
Vault Boy is presented as a young male 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 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.[16]
In 2015's Fallout Shelter, Vault Boy's distinct art style is employed for the randomly generated Vault Dwellers which players manage in the game.[9]
A customizable skin for the Mii Gunner character based on Vault Boy was added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate via downloadable content on June 22, 2020.[17]
In the 2024 Fallout television series, it is implied that Vault Boy is based on actor Cooper Howard, portrayed by Walton Goggins, who was the original face of Vault-Tec advertisements before being replaced with the Vault Boy mascot.
