Fallout Show Map Guide: Every New & Video Game Location Explained

Spoilers are ahead for Fallout season 1’s ending.

A map of Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout series would show that the adaptation neatly skirts around some of the video game’s most iconic locations, all while providing more than enough Fallout Easter eggs and references to smaller locales. For example, the TV show lets viewers inside a handful of Vaults: the fallout shelters may look familiar, but they offer new settings — and add lore to the preexisting stories. Unlike other video game-to-TV adaptations, Fallout’s timeline unfolds within the franchise’s pre-established canon. While that’s exciting for many reasons, it also requires showrunners to get creative with their settings.

Fallout 3, Bethesda’s 2008 release that breathed new life into the post-apocalyptic franchise, is primarily set in the ruined city of Washington, D.C., though the player character wanders into parts of Virginia and Maryland as well. Fallout 4, meanwhile, takes place in Boston — another city that was nuked during Fallout’s Great War in 2077. While the fan-favorite entry Fallout: New Vegas takes place in Nevada and California, its story unfolds before the events of the TV show, which occur precisely 219 years after the bombs turned the US into a radiation-filled wasteland.

The Fallout TV show incorporates several familiar Wasteland factions, from the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave to the New California Republic (NCR), but it places these groups in somewhat-new contexts. In the opening sequence, Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard, who becomes the radiated Ghoul, watches as atomic bombs engulf the Los Angeles skyline. In flashbacks, Cooper becomes a spokesperson for Vault-Tec, the company responsible for the bunkers (and bombs). Even 219 years later, the story orbits Los Angeles, which, as Fallout’s finale reminds viewers, isn’t actually too far from New Vegas.

From Nuka-Cola to Yum Yum Deviled Eggs, Fallout incorporates a lot of in-universe brands into its 8-episode first season. When it comes to locations, the familiar ones often tie back into these franchise brands and retail chains. Even locations that are completely invented for the series feel like part of the fabric of Fallout’s singular world thanks to the level of detail and other continuity-adding elements. If viewers forget it’s Fallout for a moment, the production designers have probably snuck in a Vault Boy bobblehead or outdated Pip Boy for good measure.

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Vault 33

Lucy MacLean’s Home Vault In Fallout Episode 1

After the 2077 prologue, Fallout skips ahead to the present-day action. A staggering 219 years later, protagonist Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) lives a happy-go-lucky kind of existence in Vault 33. One of Vault-Tec’s fallout shelters, Vault 33 is incredibly safe; with a substantial supply of food and other resources, its denizens live comfortably as they await Reclamation Day. According to Lucy’s father, Overseer Hank MacLean (Kyle MacLachlan), the surface’s radiation will dwindle enough for Vault Dwellers to return to the surface and establish societies — ones that harken toward the distant, pre-war past.

When raiders led by the mysterious Lee Moldaver (Sarita Choudhury) infiltrate Vault 33 and disrupt Lucy’s would-be wedding, the young Vault Dweller is forced to leave the relative safety of her bunker in pursuit of her abducted father. Along the way, Lucy weathers the Wasteland, but she also learns of Vault-Tec’s sinister purpose for Vaults 33 and 32: they were meant to serve as “breeding pools” for those who lived in Vault 31. As it turns out, Vault 31 was populated by die-hard Vault-Tec employees, who were tasked with carrying on the company’s schemes centuries later.

8

Vault 31

Where Vault-Tec Employees Were Cryogenically Frozen

Viewers learn in Fallout season 1, episode 1, that Lucy’s father, Hank, is originally from Vault 31. Of course, Hank conveniently leaves out some key details. The Overseer claims that he came to Vault 33 upon wedding Lucy’s late mother — and that’s definitely true. The part Hank fails to mention is that he is one of Vault-Tec’s devotees who was cryogenically frozen in 2077. Vault 31 is connected to Vaults 32 and 33; on the outside, they form a tripartite society — locales that are meant to trade with one another. However, that’s all part of the sinister scheme.

As Fallout season 1’s ending reveals, Vault 33 and Vault 32 only exist in order to strengthen Vault 31 and the company’s most dedicated employees. The Vaults trade resources and denizens in order to keep the vision of Vault 31 and Vault-Tec alive. After being defrosted in Vault 31, Hank becomes Vault 33’s overseer and has two children, Lucy and Norm. All three of the Vaults look eerily similar to the ones in the Fallout games, and, much like the source material, the series affirms that the Vaults are used for unethical experiments — both social and scientific.

7

The Wilds

A Section Of The Wasteland Maximus Explores

Fallout’s Brotherhood of Steel is one of many factions that populates the surface-world. Maximus (Aaron Moten) serves as a squire to one of the order’s knights — the Power Armor-wearing Titus. Initially, Maximus joins Titus on his quest to find an Enclave escapee and the pair search a particular part of the Wasteland known as The Wilds. Although the locale looks rather familiar to other swathes of radiated Wasteland that crop up throughout the Fallout games, The Wilds only appears in the Fallout TV show.

6

Filly

A Post-War Settlement Invented For The Show

Located just outside the Los Angeles-based Vaults 31, 32, and 33, Filly is the first place Lucy stumbles on. Built from scrap in what remains of the greater LA area, Filly is a village that’s situated near Santa Monica. When Lucy leaves the Vault, eagle-eyed viewers can spot the abandoned attractions of the famous Santa Monica Pier. According to Fallout, Filly’s town center is a “giant pile of trash that is slowly sinking into the earth,” though the landfill has its uses. Filly’s denizens are able to mine the landfill for tech and other useful scraps.

5

Shady Sands

A Small Settlement In New California

A small settlement in New California, Shady Sands is the heart of the powerful New California Republic faction — or it’s where the faction began. Located near several Vaults, Shady Sands appeared in 1997’s Fallout as well as 1998’s Fallout 2, though it’s mentioned in several more recent video game entries. In the TV show, the town has already been destroyed: a large crater, scattered debris, and a once-welcoming sign mark Shady Sands location. Still, it has a crucial place in Fallout’s canon.

4

Super Duper Mart

An Iconic Chain From The Fallout Franchise

A fictional supermarket chain in the Fallout universe, various iterations of Super Duper Mart pop up in games like Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Given that the games and the TV show take place in very different places — Washington D.C., Boston, and Los Angeles — the Super Duper Mart in the TV series isn’t one of the same branches that players are familiar with. Still, the very recognizable store adds a bit of continuity between the show and the games.

3

Red Rocket

A Pre-War Gas Station From The Fallout Series

Similarly, the particular branch of the Red Rocket gas station chain that appears in Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout might not surface in any of the Fallout games, but it does lend consistency to the stories. The show used a real-life gas station in Nyack, New York to bring the retro-looking Red Rocket to the screen. The gas station’s slogan — “Drive in, fly out!” — is the perfect atomic age mantra, as is the chain’s iconic Raygun Gothic architecture. Much like Super Duper Mart, Red Rocket is another pre-war relic that’s a welcome sight in the show.

2

Vault 4

A Vault Run By Scientists

In the Fallout games, players wander the Wasteland and encounter a variety of Vaults during the journeys (and side quests). While it’s not clear how many Vaults exist in Fallout’s post-apocalyptic US, there are certainly enough for Fallout’s teams to get creative with what happens within them. Notably, all the Vault-Tec bunkers are designed to host experiments. Some present social exercises, conditioning Vault Dwellers in certain ways, while other Vaults serve as laboratories for human (or once-human) subjects. The variety is endless, and Vault 4 in the show gives viewers a taste of that.

Before the Great War, the Los Angeles-based Vault 4 was key in Vault-Tec’s marketing schemes. Orientation videos and advertisements featuring then-actor and Vault-Tec spokesperson Cooper Howard were shot in Vault 4. Unlike other Vaults, which keep their sinister experiments well-hidden, Vault 4’s mission was made public: it would be governed by scientists, allowing them to live and work in the same space. Around 80 volunteers agreed to a five-year trial run in Vault 4 to prove the bunkers were must-haves.

Vault 4 also appears in the present-day storyline of the Fallout TV show. Lloyd and Cassandra Hawthorne, prominent scientists working on the effects of radiation on DNA, went full steam ahead on human testing, making hybrids of humans and radiation-resistant species. Many of the Vault Dwellers in Vault 4 are mutants, which Lucy and Maximus discover when they happen upon the location.

1

New Vegas

A Crucial Fallout Season 2 Location

To be fair, New Vegas doesn’t appear in the Fallout show in a substantial way. Instead, Fallout season 1’s ending teases the location: In the finale, Hank MacLean, who has revealed his backstory and ambitions, treks toward the unmistakable skyline of New Vegas. This moment sets up an incredibly compelling link between Fallout season 2 and New Vegas. Much like the now-destroyed Shady Sands, New Vegas will likely be a whole different beast from the version depicted in the games. Time will do that to a place, especially in Fallout’s Wasteland.