FALLOUT Season 2: All the New Vegas Game Locations, References, and Easter Eggs

Hello and welcome to season two of Prime Video’s bombastic Fallout TV series! Last year’s finale left us with Knight Maximus, Lucy, and Cooper/The Ghoul tailing after Lucy’s father to Las Vegas, and Norm locked inside of Vault 31 with the rest of Bud’s Buds. Now, we are back in the Wasteland and, of course, Fallout season two is packed with New Vegas locations, game references, and a bunch of Easter eggs. Let’s get into everyone that we spotted this season.

New Vegas Locations, Game References, and Easter Eggs in Fallout Season 2, Episode 1 – “The Innovator”

Mr. House Is in the House

We pick up this season with a new face. Those who have watched the promotional materials for this season will recognize Justin Theroux, playing the actual Mr. House, while Rafi Silver continues in his role as House’s body double. This checks out considering what a canonically paranoid bastard House is. René Auberjonois’ performance as House in Fallout: New Vegas is unforgettable, but Justin takes up the mantle with ease, bringing an intensity to the portrayal that I quite enjoy thus far. 

In the game, we never saw a pre-war Mr. House. So getting to see the man himself, rather than the near-corpse with a brain wired to a supercomputer, is a treat. He is every bit as unsettling and amoral as I’d hoped! This is one of our favorite Fallout season two Easter eggs of all.

Novac & Dinky The Dinosaur

After House uses the Union boss as a guinea pig, we cut to Cooper and Lucy. Here we see Novac, one of the more memorable locations in Fallout: New Vegas. And with Novac, of course, comes Dinky the Dinosaur. Dinky looks much like his game model here, but minus the large thermometer he has in the game. We can probably survive the loss. 

Novac is Route 66 kitsch top to bottom, as is Dinky himself. Dinky is based off of two giant dinosaur statues in Cabazon, California— Mr. Rex and Dinny the Dinosaur. Cooper mentions twenty-five years back when a woman named Darla was running the general store. In Fallout: New Vegas, the Dinobite Gift Shop, run by Cliff Briscoe, is more or less the general store. It’s inside of Dinky. You can even pick up a mini-Dinky for yourself to take home and put up on the shelf. Or you could steal the hundreds in the storage room, though that begs the question, “Why the hell do you need 200 plastic dinosaurs?”

Novac’s name comes from the ‘No Vacancy’ sign outside of the motel next to Dinky. The only letters lit up are “NOVAC.” The Courier (Fallout: New Vegas’ player character) can even get a permanent room at the motel, which is run by a woman named Jeannie May Crawford. In the game, she was responsible for selling potential companion Boone’s wife to the Legion as a slave. In the season premiere, we see Lucy hunkered down with her sniper rifle inside of Dinky’s mouth, where Boone can be found in the game watching over Novac.

So, no Jeannie May, no Boone, no Cliff. The Khans seem to have run out everybody who isn’t them. Hey, speaking of the Khans…

The Great Khans in Fallout

The Great Khans, the most significant raider group in Fallout: New Vegas, look somewhat different compared to their video game counterparts. In the game, the player can either recruit the Great Khans to work with the Legion, the NCR, or you can convince them to leave the Mojave entirely.

The Khans relied heavily on a mixture of Native American and biker gang aesthetics. They were one of the more unique factions in New Vegas, inspired by a mixture of the real life “Mongols MC” and several Great Plains cultures, like the Kansa, Osage, and Cheyenne tribes. They are stylized primarily as a motorcycle gang in the show, though their flag is one-to-one to the Fallout game flag, an Easter egg which I appreciated. 

The Khans were best known for their drug-making and subsequent drug-running throughout the American southwest. They’re an insular community for many reasons. One is the fact that the NCR has maybe, possibly committed a war crime or two against them. In 2281, they occupied Red Rock Canyon. 

While they are not initially welcoming to the Courier, if you help them out and show kindness, they’ll warm up to you. Maybe they will even give you a discount on all those drugs! 

One of the Khans in the show says, re: Cooper— “This asshole has been terrorizing us Khans since before your grandaddies were born.” Interesting… I can’t wait to learn more about Cooper’s dealings with the Khans in the past. He’s obviously left an imprint of himself in the minds of the people of the Mojave. 

Big Iron

No season premiere set in the Mojave is complete without Marty Robbins crooning “Big Iron” while ultraviolence occurs. This song is emblematic of Fallout: New Vegas fans, to the point of giving the song a vibrant second life in the 21st century and it’s a wonder game Easter egg. I loved hearing it so soon off the bat, and what better to soundtrack Cooper’s fight scene?

The Water Chip

Vault 33 continues to struggle with their malfunctioning water chip. Backup systems have been put in place, but they’re already failing. In Fallout 1, this is what drives the player character out into the Wasteland. The player is searching for the water chip to save their vault. Unfortunately, Vault 33 seems short on heroes and high on inbreeding and time-wasting. 

Starlight Drive-In 

At one point, Lucy and Cooper find themselves poking around a desolate Starlight Drive-In, a chain of drive-in theatres that existed throughout America in the 2070s. In Fallout 4, the player character can acquire one of these drive-ins and use it for settlement building. It also smacks of “Midnight Science Fiction Feature!” — the quest that opens up the long-beloved Old World Blues DLC in Fallout: New Vegas. Though technically, that location is referred to as “The Mojave Drive-In.” 

Cooper catches sight of what’s left of the marquis, and sees that one of the last films played here was one of his— “A Man And His Dog 3.” 

Vault 24 Is a VERY Deep Cut Fallout Easter Egg

A very deep-cut Easter Egg here! Savvy gamers found a Vault 24 jumpsuit in the Fallout: New Vegas game code that wasn’t accessible in the game proper. Vault 24 was intended to be in the game, but was ultimately cut due to time restraints placed on developer Obsidian. Cooper and Lucy investigate the Vault and hey, it’s another Vault-Tec brainwashing experiment gone wrong. You can cross that off your Season 2 Bingo Card. 

Whac-A-Commie

This is a small but delightful thing. In the pre-war timeline, Cooper is meeting with Moldaver at a diner in Bakersfield to discuss next steps, after he learns his wife is personally going to ensure a nuclear holocaust. While they’re having their very hush-hush discussion, Janey is on the other side of the diner, whacking squirrels wearing little Chinese Red Army hats. 

Whac-a-Commie was introduced to the game world via Fallout 4’s Nuka-World. Players can even build it themselves in settlements, if they so desire. It looks a bit different in the games, but they got the spirit!

New Vegas Locations, Game References, and Easter Eggs in Fallout Season 2, Episode 2 – “The Golden Rule”

Shady Sands

Patsy Cline croons “You Belong to Me” as we follow a young Maximus through Shady Sands—the day that Hank nuked it out of existence on Fallout. 

Shady Sands’ destruction is a heavy blow to long-time fans of the franchise, as it was a major location in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. What started as a small farming settlement made up of the survivors of Vault 15, eventually blossomed into the city we see Maximus strolling through. This is the heart of the New California Republic, the dream of a fresh start for humanity, and every day it becomes more real. 

NCR Troopers and Rangers

NCR troopers pass by Maximus, wearing the same outfits they wear in Fallout: New Vegas. An NCR ranger accompanies them, and once again—the uniform is spot on, an Easter egg straight from the Fallout game and onto the series screen. NCR rangers appeared in Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. They’re an elite, volunteer combat unit that handles everything from reconnaissance to frontline warfare. All that is to say, they look BADASS. 

The Waters of Life

We see Maximus’s father working on a water purifier in the backyard of their home. I was able to tell it was a water purifier immediately, because it looks just like the small water purifier model that players can build in Fallout 4. 

Nuclear Winter Wonderland Is a Deep Cut Fallout Easter Egg

A delirious man stumbles into Shady Sands, mumbling over and over again that, “Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.” This is a canned line that many NCR troops will say in Fallout: New Vegas when you speak to them. It’s been a meme for the Fallout fandom since 2009, and I certainly didn’t expect to get a reference to it in such an, uh, explosive fashion. 

When the bomb in Shady Sands is seconds away from exploding, Max’s parents guide him inside their fridge and close the door, to give him the greatest chance of survival. It’s also no doubt a reference to the “Kid in a Fridge” quest in Fallout 4, which is a reference to a Wild Wasteland random encounter in Fallout: New Vegas, which is a reference to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. 

The Brotherhood of Steel Continues to be a Dumpster Fire and Area 51 Arrives

“The Brotherhood has been scattered, broken into dozens of rival chapters,” Quintus explains to Maximus, aboard the deck of the Caswennen. “But now, we have the strength to unify them under one banner, here. The mightiest arsenal in history at our disposal.”

Fascinating to find out exactly what the hell is going on with the Brotherhood. It makes sense that the West Coast Brotherhood has fragmented. The Brotherhood chapters on both sides of the country have long dealt with conflict among themselves due to ideologies that are growing ever farther apart. For instance, the religious nature of Maximus’s chapter (let’s call it the Los Angeles chapter) is not what one would typically see in the Brotherhood. The boys in steel love their rituals, but whatever Quintus is on is not the norm for the BoS. 

The Brotherhood’s East Coast faction split into two for a number of years, referred to in hindsight as The Schism. Paladin Henry Casdin wanted to stay focused on finding, hoarding, and protecting technology, while the other branch, led by Owyn Lyons, wanted to focus on saving lives and improving the Wasteland. 

On the ground, Brotherhood clerics insert a fusion core into semi-derelict machinery. They flash a message up to the airship, and the airship gives them the go ahead. A sizable base/bunker begins to rise out of the sand. It smacks of Hidden Valley in Fallout: New Vegas, the hidden bunker that the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel took refuge in for years when the NCR was the dominant faction in the area. Except, it’s not Hidden Valley—it’s Area 51. 

“Together,” Quintus says. “We will fulfill our promise. We can make better this fallen world.”

Now THAT sounds like some Lyons ideology to me! But for some reason, I still don’t think Quintus understands the spirit of the thing…

Caesar’s Legion Lives in Fallout Season 2

Lucy pesters Cooper about being a piece of shit, and Cooper keeps selecting the ‘Say nothing.’ dialogue option. Lucy then recounts the entirety of A Christmas Carol to him as they continue their hike through the wastes. 

They come across Affordable Al’s Discount Hospital, and a scream from within draws Lucy (and a reluctant Cooper) inside. They find the source of the screaming, and Cooper immediately observes, “Tunics. You awful far west, ain’t ya?”

Anyone who has played Fallout: New Vegas will instantly recognize the garb of a Legion woman (read: slave). ‘Far west’ here could mean far to the west of Cottonwood Cove, the Legion’s main operating base in the Mojave, or he could be referring to her being ‘far west’ from the lands beyond the Colorado River, where the Legion rules with an iron fist. Either way, he’s clearly dealt with the Legion before, and it must’ve left one hell of a bad taste in his mouth.

When Lucy goes to give the woman a stimpak, Cooper says, “That would be a profound misallocation of resources. Folks in those outfits don’t deserve saving.” Damn Cooper, tell us how you really feel!

Yikes!

There’s another injured man in the hospital basement. Cooper goes to him, feigns helping him up, then promptly kills the guy and rips off a piece for a snack. Putting that Cannibal perk to good use as always. A moment later, however, he starts to gag. Uh-oh! That meat isn’t very good!

Cue the scorpions! Out of every nook and cranny, Bark Scorpions (a la New Vegas) burst forth, harassing our heroes. Then, a Giant Radscorpion (one of Fallout’s classic enemies) enters the chat, and a knockdown dragout fight ensues. 

Meanwhile, Back at the Vault

Norm, after releasing the denizens of Vault 31 from their cryo-chambers, has to think of a way to keep mass hysteria from taking over. Norm declares it’s Reclamation Day, a reference to the foretold day that the Vaults would open, and the Vault-Dwellers would begin rebuilding civilization from the ground up. 

Fallout 76 begins on Reclamation Day, when the player character emerges from Vault 76 in Flatwood, West Virginia. Vault 76 is one of seventeen control vaults—one of the ‘good ones’ Barb referenced last season.

Yes, Aliens Are Canon in Fallout

“Holy shit!” exclaims a Brotherhood soldier, as he opens a fridge to find a God-honest alien frozen solid inside on Fallout season two. He then promptly pushes the corpse out and declares, “Finally, a real fucking icebox!” 

While this might seem like a goofy one-off joke with a mismatched tone to the rest of the world, it’s actually referencing a not insignificant portion of game lore. Aliens canonically exist in the Fallout universe—these little uglies are the Zetans, and they’ve been hanging out around Earth for about a thousand years, stealing humans all the while to experiment on, or keep in cold storage for…reasons? Their motives are never revealed in any of the games.

In the 1960s, the Zetans captured the Clarabella 6, a ship captained by Colonel Hartigan. This was when the United States government became aware of the Zetans. A group formed not long after called “Quaare Verum,” with the sole purpose of revealing the existence of the Zetans—and the government’s use of alien technology—to the public at large. They got their hands on a reverse-engineered MPLX Novasurge. However, it was recovered by the Zetans, and the government dissolved the group with force. 

Though not certain, it’s heavily implied that the Enclave’s weaponry is also reverse-engineered alien technology. 

In Fallout 3, one can find the Alien Blaster in a random encounter. Now, if you have the Mother Ship Zeta DLC, you can go straight to the aliens themselves. You can blast your way through the labyrinthine mothership for a few hours, rescuing cryo victims and killing little green men and a variety of other enemies with great prejudice. 

Going back to Flatwood, WV—human Zetan agents, such as the assistant CEO of Vault-Tec, helped the aliens kidnap more experiment subjects in the area. This phenomenon is referred to by the locals as the “Flatwoods Monster”. Around 2104, the Zetans began periodic invasions of Appalachia, and were opposed by local denizens and Vault-Dwellers alike. 

As early as Fallout 1, we encounter the Zetans. The Vault-Dweller can find a crashed UFO with nearby corpses, or find a singular alien corpse near a computer near the Glow, a hotspot for radiation southeast of the Boneyard, AKA Los Angeles. In Fallout 4, after the Sole Survivor reaches a certain level, they’ll see an alien spaceship careening towards the ground. It crashes in the distance—if the Sole Survivor follows, you’ll find the survivors of the crash. They immediately fire on you. If you fire back and successfully kill them, you once again get the Alien Blaster. 

A Game-Accurate Fallout Minigun Does Some Damage

Scribes, Knights, and Initiates mill around Area 51, finding all sorts of things to mess around with, including turning a (game-accurate) minigun on a prime condition classic car. Car Enthusiasts, look upon the Brotherhood of Steel and tremble. 

Chain of Command

While Maximus is polishing his armor, Dane informs him that Quintus has broken the chain of command, and the Commonwealth is not aware that he’s summoned the other West Coast chapters. Quintus is clearly planning to seize power—and that means war. The Commonwealth is the name for the state of Massachusetts, especially the relatively heavily populated Boston sprawl. The Brotherhood arrived in 2287 from Washington DC, led by Elder Maxson. They came with the goal to destroy the Institute utterly. If they’re powerful enough to be considered the leading Brotherhood chapter, it implies the BOS ending for Fallout 4 may indeed be canon. 

(TLDR for those not familiar with the Institute: evil scientists living underneath Totally-Not-MIT in Boston. They make synthetic beings that are one-to-one replicas of humans.)

When Quintus summons the other elders, he reveals that he has enough fusion cores to amount to essentially infinite energy—and particularly dangerous, considering the Brotherhood also possesses cold fusion. Fusion cores are what the pre-war world ran off of, and they are one of the most valuable things to be scavenged in the wasteland.

A Kindly Profligate

Taking her newfound friend back home, Lucy starts to think that maybe this wasn’t the greatest idea she’s ever had. Finally, our first glimpse of the Legion! Draped in Legion reds, repurposed football gear, and animal skins, they greatly resemble their Fallout: New Vegas counterparts. 

Harkness! No, Not That One!

After Maximus is puzzlingly challenged to a fight-to-the-death by a fellow Brotherhood member (and somehow survives the encounter!) an unexpected Vertibird lands. Out jumps Xander Harkness, a Paladin from the Commonwealth. His outfit is based off of a mix of a few different in-game outfits in Fallout 4. 

At first I got excited, because there’s a character named Harkness in Fallout 3. In the quest “The Replicated Man,” the Lone Wanderer discovers that Harkness is a synth. The Wanderer can handle this situation in a litany of ways, from informing Harkness that he is in fact a mind-wiped synth, or simply betraying him to the Institute (who is in Rivet City looking for him) who will then cart him back to the Institute for some ‘re-education’. But, nah, different guy. 

New Vegas Locations, Game References, and Easter Eggs in Fallout Season 2, Episode 3 – “The Profligate”

Build Mass with Sass! Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottlecaps Are a Fun Game Easter Egg

We open Fallout season two, episode three, in a child sweatshop run by Thaddeus, who is looking less than amazing. He claims he’s a ghoul, though fans of the series may suspect the Forced Evolutionary Virus as the culprit, as we’re not sure what Dr. Chickenlover injected dear Thaddeus with last season. The kids are popping the bottle caps off of Sunset Sarsaparilla bottles, a very popular drink before the Great War, especially in the American Southwest. 

Thaddeus is presumably doing this so he can hoard bottlecaps, which is more than enough reason by itself—but as a Fallout: New Vegas obsessive, the Sunset Sarsaparilla bottlecaps hold greater meaning. In the game, the Courier can get caught up in a deadly race to collect Sunset Sarsaparilla Star bottlecaps in a quest called “The Legend of the Star.” A great prize is at stake, and the denizens of the Mojave and beyond are more than ready to kill over it.

(The prize turns out to be a story told by a robot, 1500 caps, and 319 Sunset Sarsaparilla Deputy badges, which are monetarily worthless.)

Fallout Season 2 References New Vegas with Caesar vs Kai-Zar Debate

Cut to Lucy and her new friend getting ‘escorted’ (shoved) through the Legion camp. Lucy spots slaves being whipped, sees a man having his tongue cut out, and the entire thing is soundtracked by wretched screams. In other words, staying very true to the Legion presented to us in the game. 

They’re pushed into a tent where a Legion legate waits. The mask and armor match Legate Lanius, the second-in-command of Caesar’s Legion during the events of Fallout: New Vegas. The Legate immediately beheads the woman Lucy brought all the way there. Ah, Caesar’s Legion. Never change. (Please change.)

Then, off comes the helmet—and damn! McCauley Culkin plays Legate to one of the two Caesars, not Caesar himself. 

“Ave, profligate,” he greets Lucy. 

Lucy tries to speak directly to Caesar, but Legate Culkin cuts her off. “How dare you address the great Caesar?” He pronounces Caesar ‘Kai-zar’, in the Classical Latin tradition. Just like in the games, someone’s pronunciation of Caesar is very indicative of where their loyalties lie re: the Legion. A wonderful touch in New Vegas that I’m happy to see make it to screen. 

Lucy makes her case for not falling victim to the Legion’s prima noctis tradition, and is promptly sent for crucifixion. Much better outcome than the former, honestly. On the way, Legate Culkin informs her that they’re at war—with the NCR, the Khans, and the Brotherhood. But most importantly, they’re at war with themselves.

After Caesar’s death (brain tumor or murder, depending on how you played Fallout: New Vegas), no one could agree on a new Caesar. Now they’re divided into two camps, fighting for dominance in a stalemate of a civil war. Apparently, the cornerstone of the conflict is Caesar’s (quite decimated) corpse. Gripped in his hand is the name of his successor, but every time Legate Culkin’s half of the Legion attempts to get at it, the other side shoots at them. 

Lucy being Lucy, she offers to help settle the differences between the two halves of the Legion, but as someone who foolishly tried to play a woman on their Legion save, I was not surprised to see her immediately put up on a cross anyway. 

A Fallout Brotherhood History Lesson

Quintus continues pleading with the other Elders to join him in a rebellion against the Commonwealth Brotherhood. They are unmoved, so he reminds them how the Brotherhood itself came from rebellion. In 2077, Captain Roger Maxson was assigned to Mariposa Military Base. When he discovered the unethical experiments being conducted there with the aforementioned Forced Evolutionary Virus, he declared himself and his men traitors, and created the Brotherhood of Steel. 

“When he saw what they were doing there, the depraved experiments on human subjects, well then, Roger Maxson had to ask himself: who did he serve? His God, or his government?” Quintus rises, eyes locked on Maximus. “He chose his God. He shot the scientists, he shot the people who tried to stop him. His government had defied God—and for that, he defied his government. But he wasn’t punished. He was saved, so that he could found our noble order.” He looks pleadingly at the Yosemite elder. “If our rebellion is righteous, the way will be paved for us.”

To which the Yosemite elder says, “I told you. I don’t go in for the religious stuff.” Mic drop. Love you, queen. 

Not long after, Maximus suggests killing Paladin Harkness, and Quintus loses his ever-loving mind at him. He mocks the ‘dullness of the sword’ and promptly kicks Maximus out of the discussion and the council chambers.

Paladin Harkness soon finds Maximus, and comments on how many ‘clerics’ the LA chapter has. In the game, these clerics are called ‘Scribes’, and are divided into three orders: the Sword, the Shield, and the Quill. Sword Scribes work on retrofitting pre-war technology to fit their offensive needs, and building new weapons in the Brotherhood’s fight against, you know, whatever. Shield is the same diff, but for defense. And then we have the Quill—recording history and protecting the knowledge of the current world and the pre-war world. 

Harkness is right that clerics/scribes aren’t usually in charge. That being said—Quintus is eight billion years old, he may have been a soldier once. The robes he wears aren’t entirely dissimilar from the outfit worn by Elder Owyn Lyons in the Capital Wasteland, who was a soldier long before he led the Brotherhood. 

Mr. House Is Always Watching in Fallout‘s World

Cooper explores an old holdout of the NCR’s that appears to have been abandoned. While he searches for signs of where NCR troops may be located, he bumps into an old…friend? Enter Victor, the Securitron Cowboy. Yee-haw!

“Someone really did a number on my numbers,” Victor explains haltingly to Cooper. “Memory’s all jimble-jambled,” he continues. According to Victor, he’s been out of commission for about a decade. 

In Fallout: New Vegas, Victor is the one who pulls the near-death Courier from their shallow grave. He then carries them to Doc Mitchell, who saves their life. The Courier runs into Victor at many different points on their journey through the Mojave Wasteland—assuming they don’t throw a grenade at him and have done with it. Eventually, it becomes apparent that Victor is a creation of House’s, and he’s used the friendly robot cowboy to keep an eye on the Courier. So—a figure that is both sinister and helpful, is what I’m saying. 

When Cooper presses for information about the NCR and who is in charge around these parts, Victor replies, “You know how it is around here. The NCR and the Legion goin’ at it like cats and dogs!” 

Cooper brings up Mr. House. “The man that built you…where’s Robert House?”

“He’s gone. All he wanted was to live forever…life ain’t fair, I guess.”

Victor lets you know there are some NCR rangers up in the hills. Cooper thanks him and is on his way. 

“Be seeing you!”

“Oh, I’m sure you will.” 

Cooper says it knowingly, like he thinks House is watching him at that very moment. 

The New Vegas Location of Primm Arrives in Fallout Season 2

“Where is everybody?” Cooper asks Captain Rodriguez of the NCR. 

“Up here, it’s just us.”

After glancing at the game map of the Mojave Wasteland, if I had to guess, this is Ranger Station Charlie. Seeing Primm in the background serves as a great reference point—did you spot the rollercoaster? That’s the Desperado, which is part of the Bison Steve Hotel & Casino. Primm is also home to the Vicky & Vance Casino. 

In Fallout: New Vegas, the Bison Steve has been taken over by escaped convicts from the NCR Correctional Facility, known as Powder Gangers. The people of Primm hide inside of the Vicky & Vance casino. (Imagine Bonnie and Clyde, but lame.)

One of the solutions to the town’s problems is joining the NCR, so they can benefit from their protection against Wasteland threats. Perhaps that’s what happened here? 

In the game, Vegas and its environs are chock-full of NCR troops and citizens, from the sharecroppers, to enlisted men, to the rangers themselves. Now it’s just these two? And they’ve been cut off from the rest of the NCR for a decade? Cooper’s right—the NCR is looking dusty as hell. Rodriguez says they’re winning the war against the Legion. I guess we’ll take her word for it.

Fallout Season 2 Confirms Upgraded Securitrons

WELL HELLO, UPGRADED SECURITRONS!

Maximus and Paladin Harkness end up scuffling with some Securitrons. In the game, the PDQ-88b Securitron model is the standard for keeping the streets of New Vegas orderly. At the start of the game, the Securitron faces resemble cartoon cops, but if the Courier updates the operating system, the cop faces turn into soldier faces—like the one we see Maximus and Harkness fighting. 

So, assuming there’s some synergy with the game, this means that regardless of who won the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, the software update did go through. Said update increases the Securitrons combat viability by 235%. Thank God for power armor, am I right?

Fallout Season 2 Brings the Super Sledge Weapon Right Out of the Games

The rocket-powered sledgehammer that Harkness lends Maximus is known as a Super Sledge in the game. It’s usually among the strongest melee weapons in most recent titles. It looks great here—and boy, it sure does come in handy. Maximus must have a really high melee skill to one-shot a Brotherhood Paladin. Well done, buddy! What’s one more war?

New Vegas Locations, Game References, and Easter Eggs in Fallout Season 2, Episode 4 – “The Demon in the Snow”

Deathclaws and Power Armor and Government Conspiracies, Oh My!

Operation: Anchorage was the US annex of Alaska in the 2070s, and a campaign that our boy Coop served in. It’s a grimmer, non-propaganda look than what we get in the game series with the virtual rendition of the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska in the third game’s Operation: Anchorage DLC. 

We see Cooper and his friend Charlie Whiteknife trudging through the snow, in the power armor Cooper has been bitching about for over two hundred years. When Charlie’s power armor malfunctions, Cooper sends him back and carries on solo. 

AND THEN: Motherf***in’ Deathclaws, y’all! They look so good! Their pre-war presence is accurate to the games. While the Deathclaws certainly come off as a post-nuclear-holocaust kinda critter, they were actually genetically engineered by the Enclave before the war to be disposable super soldiers for heavy combat situations.

The species they used as a base? Jackson’s chameleons, as pictured below.

Isn’t he cute as the dickens when he’s not a ten-foot-tall murder machine with a mouth and hands full of knives? It’s amazing what a few crimes against humanity and infinite funding can accomplish. 

Yay, Drugs! Buffout Is a BIG Fallout Game Easter Egg

When we check in on Lucy, she’s waking up with an IV full of liquid Buffout in her arm. This is the Fallout world’s most common brand-name steroid. It’s used for plenty of legit medical purposes, like helping restore someone who has been strung up on a cross starving and dying of dehydration for a few days. It was often used illicitly by athletes as a performance enhancer before the war.

Buffout is one of the main chems in the Fallout games, usually providing Strength and Endurance boosts to the player, while also boosting the maximum HP the player can have. Everyone has knocked back a bottle of Buffout and washed it down with vodka to get a few more desk fans back to the homestead. But watch out! If you get addicted and don’t feed your fix, you’ll get a debuff to Strength and Endurance instead. Yes, this is foreshadowing. Lucy starts to notice as they near New Vegas that she maybe, possibly is hooked on Buffout now. Time for some Addictol!

You’re SPECIAL! The Base Stats of Fallout Games Hits TV

On the wall during the Inbreeding Support Group meeting, there’s a poster that reads “Pick a job that’s SPECIAL to you!” This is a reference to your character’s range of base stats in the Fallout games:

The same font and style is also present on a pre-war baby book called “You’re SPECIAL!” In Fallout 3, we use it to set our character’s stats at the ripe age of one. In Fallout 4, your son Shaun has a copy pre-war. And the same copy can be used to give the Sole Survivor a free point to any of their SPECIAL skills two hundred years later. 

Blam-Co Mac and Cheese

When we return to Norm and his merry band of Vault-Tec employees, they’re all gathered around a pre-war delivery truck, eating Blam-Co Mac and Cheese, a common pre-war and post-war staple in the games. I suspect some of the taste is lost when you’re eating it two hundred years old and dry. Great mouthfeel though!

A Hunk, a Hunk of Burnin’ Flesh: The Kings From Fallout: New Vegas

A much-loved faction from Fallout: New Vegas is the Kings, the faction that runs and protects the settlement of Freeside in-game. They live in an old Elvis impersonation school, and as you can see, they take that very seriously. Even if they may have missed some cultural context. The leader of the Kings in-game is simply called The King. Here we see a gaggle of Kings as feral ghouls, which is an extremely bad sign. Cooper says they should try the easternmost gate, which will let them into Freeside. It’s not difficult to get to the Strip from there (I’m going off of game geography here, of course. Don’t ask me about actual Las Vegas.)

It makes sense that Cooper would assume getting to Vegas through the south as a relatively safe bet. In the game, past the Grub’n’Gulp Gas Stop, both Camp McCarran and a stretch of NCR sharecropper farms can be found. Camp McCarran is (err, was?) the NCR’s base of operations in the Mojave Wasteland. 

But the drugs start talking, and Lucy starts walking. She wants to take the direct route. She trots past a sign that warns of raiders ahead with a smile on her face. Also game accurate! The surrounding environs of Vegas have always struggled with the Fiends, a massive raider gang that operates out of Vault 3. 

Hey, wait a minute, is that Pacer? The feral ghoul in the Jailhouse Rock outfit is dressed like Pacer from Fallout: New Vegas. He’s the King’s right hand man, until he becomes a ratfink bastard traitor. His name is a reference to Elvis Presley’s character in Flaming Star, Pacer Burton. 

And—well godd**n, there’s the King himself! Or at least a ghoul in the same digs. Lucy puts him out of his misery, with glee.

New Vegas Is…Wrong

“Aren’t there supposed to be people here?” Yes Lucy, yes there are. Everything is wrong.

I know, I know, it’s the apocalypse, so you may think, “Of course it looks wrong!” However, New Vegas fans love it dearly and know it as a bright, loud oasis in the vast stretches of sand and death in the Mojave. A city bustling with NCR troopers and citizens, the independently wealthy of the wasteland, members of the Three Families, entertainers, and everyone in between.

Now it sits almost deathly silent, the neon barely flickering. What gives? The Ultra-Luxe and Gomorrah, two of the in-game casinos from Fallout: New Vegas, sit vacant. (So does the Lucky 38, but that’s normal—at least post-war.)

The Full List of Fallout: New Vegas Game Easter Eggs in Fallout Season 2

We Cannot WAIT to See More Fallout Season 2 Easter Eggs, New Vegas Locations, and Game References

As someone who is perpetually hunting for game connections and references, Fallout season two is set to please. The Googie architecture of the pre-war world, drenched in 1950s nostalgia and retro-futurism, comes across just as immersive and authentic to the games as ever. I paused watching Cooper in his kitchen, because it’s just like the pre-war kitchens in Fallout 4. But it is yellow, which makes it pop even more. I want to kiss all the set designers on the forehead. 

Galaxy News plays on the radio (Galaxy News Radio is the primary radio station in Fallout 3) and mentions WestTek (defense contractor also in the games) and, of course, RobCo, Mr. House’s primary company. There really isn’t a minute of the show where the spirit and themes of Fallout aren’t present in a very felt way. 

Fallout season two airs Wednesdays on Prime Video.

Originally published on December 16, 2025.