One of my absolute favourite things to do in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 is explore the various vaults scattered across the nuclear wastes of America.
Finding a vault in a Fallout game usually means one thing: shit is about to get weird. Or dark. Or both. A batch of killer clones, a virtual reality simulation, ghosts brought on by hallucinogenic gas - you never know what you're going to find behind that heavy metal door.
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Exploring these windows into the past is always such a treat, that my only complaint is there aren't more vaults. Hell, Fallout 5 could just be about exploring vaults back to back and I probably wouldn't complain.
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It's little surprise, then, that I'm particularly obsessed with the excellent mod Fallout Vault 494: A Vault-Tec Story.
"Vault 494: A Vault-Tec Story adds a new Vault for the player to explore," the mod's creator explains on NexusMods. "As the player approaches the Nahant area they will pick up a Vault-Tec distress signal which will begin. From there the player will be free to explore Vault 494, which an accounting error gave an unusually high number, and Vault-Tec's attempts to create a crime-free society."
The way in which this mod, which is essentially a new free quest, manages to capture the vibe of the officially developed Fallout vaults is nothing short of incredible. The constant sense of unease as you gradually unravel the vault's doomed experiment is masterfully done, and feels like it could have been ripped from the base game. Honestly, I'd put this up there with the Gary vault in terms of sheer creepiness.
If you're interested - and I would certainly hope that you are - you can download and discover the story of Fallout's Vault 494 from NexusMods.