Vault Boy

Vault Boy is the mascot of the Fallout media franchise. Created by staff at Interplay Entertainment, the original owners of the Fallout intellectual property, Vault Boy was introduced in 1997's Fallout as an advertising character representing Vault-Tec, a fictional megacorporation that built a series of specialized fallout shelters throughout the United States prior to the nuclear holocaust that sets up the world state of the Fallout universe. Within the video game series, Vault Boy serves as a representation of the player character's statistical information within user interface (UI) menus, and is a recurring element in Vault-Tec products found throughout the fictional Fallout universe. In the 2024 Fallout television series, Vault Boy is depicted as having been inspired by Vault-Tec advertisements featuring fictional actor Cooper Howard (portrayed by Walton Goggins). Vault Boy's design was developed by Leonard Boyarsky, who drew inspiration from 1950s films as well as the visual aesthetic of the economics-themed board game Monopoly. Vault Boy is a ubiquitous feature in promotional material and merchandising for the Fallout brand, and is regarded by critics to be one of the most recognizable elements of the franchise and the embodiment of its sardonic, retrofuturistic themes.