The Fallout franchise is mostly known for the raiders, the super mutants, and other such dangers in the wasteland. However, it has also showcased extraterrestrial beings in its titles. Every main game in the series has included aliens in some form or other — from passing encounters to full-blown quests surrounding them.
In fact, there seems to be more alien-related content in the newer Fallout games. Fallout 3 even features an expansion where the player is abducted by aliens and must escape their spacecraft. The next Fallout titles then follow with more alien encounters, albeit not as extensive as the Fallout 3 add-on. Still, it seems the developers intend to continue this trend of adding alien creatures to the Fallout games.
The Special Alien Encounter in Fallout
In the first Fallout game, players can randomly encounter a crashed spacecraft as they travel from one point of the map to another. It’ll be partly buried under the ground with two skeletons lying by it. These skeletons were likely aliens as they have enlarged skulls.
Searching them will reward the player with an Alien Blaster and a Fuzzy Painting. Fallout’s Alien Blaster is a unique gun with high damage, high accuracy, but short range. As for the Fuzzy Painting, it’s likely an easter egg as it’s an in-game portrait of Elvis Presley.
The Sierra Army Depot in Fallout 2
The Alien Blaster makes another appearance in Fallout 2. However, it doesn’t come with an alien-related encounter and can, instead be bought from a traveling merchant named Willy. Alternatively, the player can acquire one from the trap room puzzle in the Enclave Oil Rig, suggesting that the Enclave of Fallout has had dealings with extraterrestrial beings.
Aside from this, there are more subtle nods to aliens in the Sierra Army Depot, specifically in Skynet, which is an artificial intelligence unit in Fallout that can be found there. Skynet’s dialogue explains that it was created in 2050 through the use of alien technology. Additionally, in the facility’s fourth level, the player can find the corpse of an alien with a familiar enlarged head in one of the cells. This suggests that the Fallout world’s United States Army was doing research on extraterrestrial life forms.
Fallout 3’s Mothership Zeta Add-on
In Fallout 3, players are treated to an entire questline centering around alien abduction. Following a strange radio transmission, the Lone Wanderer goes to an alien crash site (arguably one of the harder locations to find in Fallout 3), which then teleports the player onto the titular Mothership Zeta. There, they meet with other prisoners who’d been abducted at different times and preserved through cryostasis. For instance, a little girl named Sally reveals that she was abducted shortly after the bombs dropped, meaning she’s more than 200 years old in the events of the Mothership Zeta questline.
This is the first main Fallout game where the player encounters (and fights) living aliens. Throughout the expansion’s quests, Fallout 3’s Lone Wanderer must battle their way to Mothership Zeta and find a way to return to Earth with the rest of the prisoners. The aliens onboard are hostile creatures, with thin limbs and enlarged heads, somewhat similar to the skeletons from the previous games.
Exploring the spacecraft also reveals the aliens’ advanced technology and the experiments they conduct with it, which focuses mainly on human testing. It seems that while the US Army was experimenting on aliens, the aliens were also experimenting on humans. After fighting off the aliens and claiming the ship, the Lone Wanderer will be able to return to the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3 through a teleporter. Accessing it will bring the player back to the alien crash site.
Following this expansion, the developers began adding more alien enemies and encounters to its subsequent games. Obsidian Entertainment, in particular, had an interesting way of adding aliens to Fallout: New Vegas.
Fallout: New Vegas’ Wild Wasteland Trait
There aren’t a lot of alien encounters in Fallout: New Vegas. However, should the player pick the Wild Wasteland trait for their playthrough, they might encounter more bizarre events as they travel the wasteland. Most notably, they’ll find a spacecraft hovering atop a cliff to the north of the Horowitz farmstead. Below it will be three aliens, built similarly to the ones from Fallout 3, wielding Alien Blasters.
Because this encounter isn’t available in the base game (that is, without the Wild Wasteland trait), it’s unclear whether it’s canon in the Fallout timeline. However, since aliens have been appearing since the first Fallout game, perhaps it isn’t a stretch to believe that alien visits are the norm in the wasteland. The following Fallout games certainly prove this.
The Crashed UFO in Fallout 4
In Fallout 4, the Sole Survivor can randomly experience hearing the sound of a plane before spotting a vehicle passing overhead and crashing in the distance. Following its trail (or alternatively, tracking the garbled radio beacon signal) will lead them to a UFO crash site. There, they’ll find an alien spacecraft half-buried in the ground.
There will be a cave beneath the crash site, and exploring it will reveal the craft’s wounded pilot — an alien. Again, it looks similar to the ones from the past games, which raises the question of why these specific aliens keep landing on the planet Earth. Regardless, defeating the alien will yield an Alien Blaster Pistol for Fallout 4 along with specific alien ammo.
Alien Invasion in Fallout 76
Fallout 76 also has some alien encounters in store. Corpses of the extraterrestrial species can be found in the Enclave Research Facility, hinting once again that the Enclave is interested in alien creatures and technology. Additionally, the game released an event entitled “Invaders from Beyond,” which has players defending Appalachia from an oncoming alien invasion.
During this event, the player is assisted by Homer Saperstein, an individual who claims to know much about the alien race. As the player fights off a Fallout alien invasion, Homer explains that studying these extraterrestrial entities is their life’s purpose and that it’s crucial to control their presence. They also claim to speak the alien species’ language and are trying to hack into their communication channels as the aliens are very close to Earth.
All this suggests that the aliens that have been present throughout the series were on Earth (or at least in close proximity) for a reason. Though that reason is yet unknown, future Fallout 76 updates or even upcoming Fallout games could reveal more about the extraterrestrial beings and their agenda.
Fallout 76 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
