Highlights
- Vault Boy found on a bandage wrapper - a quirky product placement giving a peek into a world with constant Vault Boy sightings.
- Fallout's iconic mascot is everywhere, including the Amazon Prime TV series, with a new story behind Vault Boy's origins.
- Unlikely legal action over Vault Boy on bandages, as companies may find it more trouble than it's worth.
A Fallout fan has discovered a Vault Boy in an unexpected place, with the iconic mascot appearing on a bandage wrapper. Players in the Fallout games can expect to see Vault Boy everywhere, and this strange product placement is a glimpse of what it would be like if it were utilized so frequently in the real world.
The Vault Boy is as well-known as the Fallout series itself for most fans, with the cheerful mascot appearing on anything and everything related to Vault-Tec in the series. This includes the recent Fallout Amazon Prime TV series, which created a new backstory explaining the existence and origins of the Vault Boy before the bombs fell.
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A Fallout fan by the name of _Razil_ shared a photograph of their discovery of a Vault Boy on a bandage wrapper of all things. The bandage package generally looks like a standard band-aid wrapper, with some general branding, outside of the Vault Boy printed in the lower right corner. Amusingly, the company that made the packaging used a version of the Vault Boy with his thumb bandaged as he performs the iconic thumbs-up pose. In the game, it wouldn't be a surprise at all to see Vault Boy on official Vault-Tec first aid supplies, but _Razil_ likely did a double-take when spying it on a real product.
Why is the Fallout Vault Boy on a Random Bandage Package?
_Razil_ is apparently located in India, and the company likely wasn't too concerned with copyright when manufacturing these wrappers. It's unknown if the Vault Boy is utilized in any other way by the company, like on a box holding the bandages. It's a curious discovery, and begs the question of whether the person who designed the wrapper knew the significance of the Vault Boy design, or if they just randomly found the image on the internet and decided to utilize it.
It's quite unlikely that Bethesda or Microsoft will pursue any kind of legal action against the company, even though they're using the mascot without permission. It's not the first time that game characters have appeared weirdly out of context. For example, Red Dead Redemption's Arthur Morgan has been spied on the walls of a chicken restaurant. While most game publishers are extremely protective of their properties, the effort and money involved in trying to get the bandage company to stop could be more trouble than it's worth.
These bandages were likely produced some time ago, but they've been spotted amid something of a Fallout resurgence. The excitement and praise surrounding the Fallout TV series has propelled the games back into the public eye. With more Fallout fans than ever, perhaps more odd Vault Boy appearances will be spotted elsewhere.
Fallout
Fallout is a franchise built around a series of RPGs set in a post-nuclear world, in which great vaults have been built to shelter parts of humankind. There are six main games, various spin-offs, tabletop games, and a TV series from Amazon Studios.
