Skip to main content

The best ‘Fallout 4’ Easter eggs and secrets

Wild wasteland: The best secrets and Easter eggs in 'Fallout 4'

Fallout 4, Bethesda’s latest open-world RPG, is dense with content. While there are plenty of major storylines to follow and landmarks to seek out, some of the best moments in the game lie off the beaten path. There are dozens of Easter eggs and strange moments scattered throughout the Commonwealth, and some stand out more than others. Below are some of the best, in no particular order.

Prost!

fo4 prost bar screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Making your way through the Commonwealth takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from the deathclaws and raiders sure would help a lot. If you would like to get away, Bethesda has carved out a little space for you in the Prost Bar, a fairly overt reference to the bar from the ’80s sitcom Cheers. Modeled to look like the Boston watering hole, Prost includes baseball memorabilia and skeletons dressed like the show’s recurring patrons. The deceased crowd at Prost may not know your name — not everyone can be Codsworth, after all — but on the bright side, they sure do make great listeners.     

Nirnroot… or not?

fo4 experimental plant screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Between Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, Bethesda is probably the biggest name in Western RPGs, and although the two series occupy very different universes, there are times when the worlds collide. Fans of Fallout’s fantasy counterpart will find an interesting easter egg in the Brotherhood of Steel’s flagship, the Prydwen. In the section of the ship where Senior Scribe Neriah conducts her experiments, a variety of flora can be found. While many of the samples will seem ordinary by the wasteland’s standards, one specimen named “Experimental Plant” may seem out of place. Elder Scrolls fans will note the plant’s uncanny resemblance to nirnroot, a common plant throughout Tamriel. Although the plant cannot be used to brew potions (sadly, scientists in Fallout have yet to pursue alchemy), players can consume it to heal damage and radiation.

The UFO crash

fallout ufo screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Fallout games are a celebration of ’50s pop culture, and aside from nuclear war and suburbia, nothing is as representative of ’50s attitudes as aliens, specifically of the little green man variety. The previous Fallout games have all featured appearances by aliens in some capacity, and Fallout 4 continues the tradition in spectacular fashion. While wandering the Commonwealth, players may see a UFO crash in the distance. The wreckage can be found south of Oberland Station, with a trail of blood leading to a cave and the ship’s pilot. Sadly, the alien pilot will attack on sight, but this close encounter of the violent kind does have a happy ending, in that you can loot its corpse for an alien blaster pistol.

Hubris Comics

fo4 grognak axe screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Fans of Golden Age comics will find many allusions and easter eggs in Fallout 4, including Grognak the Barbarian comics and, if they wander around the town of Goodneighbor, a radio drama called The Silver Shroud. Literate players will note these characters are inspired by Conan the Barbarian and The Shadow, the latter of which is a grim vigilante from the 1930s and a precursor to Batman. Players can even dress up as these heroes by visiting the ruined headquarters of Hubris Comics. The Shroud’s full costume can be found on a brightly lit dummy on the top floor, and a certain quest will actually direct players to pick it up. What players might not notice, however, is Grognak’s equipment. The Grognak costume, which increases the player’s melee damage, rests on a shelf on the top floor, while the Grognak Axe, which staggers enemies and causes them to bleed, is in a locked case on the first floor.

Dunwich Borers

fo4 dunwich borers screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s no secret that there are fans of H.P. Lovecraft at Bethesda, with both Oblivion and Fallout 3 containing numerous references to the author’s works. Given that Lovecraft was a New England native, it’s fitting that Fallout 4’s depiction of Boston pays homage to the horror writer. In the northeast section of the map, there is a massive quarry titled “Dunwich Borers,” a not-so-subtle nod to Lovecraft’s short story The Dunwich Horror. Beneath the quarry is a long, labyrinthine-like mine occupied by raiders and… others. It would be telling to explain any further, but those who remember the Dunwich Building from Fallout 3 may have some idea what’s in store.

The Pickman Gallery

Another Lovecraft reference can be found in an unassuming house north of Goodneighbor. While the front of The Pickman Gallery looks like any old Commonwealth dwelling, inside are horrific works of art. The most mild are paintings reminiscent of Dore, but there are some sculptures made of… unique materials that are sure to disgust. Exploring the depths of the gallery, players may come to learn what madness drives the artist responsible. Pickman is inspired by the artist of the same name from Lovecraft’s story Pickman’s Model, in which an artist creates troubling paintings that seem to radiate evil.  

Walden Pond

fo4 walden screenshot
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Massachusetts has churned out quite a few important writers, and Henry David Thoreau is one of the most famous. Players exploring the Commonwealth can find a tribute to Thoreau at Walden Pond, the site where where he wrote his famous transcendentalist manifesto, Walden. There is a gift shop containing booby traps and a locked door, and in order to get inside players will need to crawl through a nearby drainage ditch. In the shop’s basement are some raiders having a conversation about Thoreau and transcendentalism, which says good things about the quality of the education system in post-apocalypse Massachusetts.

A few bottles of Amontillado

fo4 amontillado screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Those who follow the Minutemen faction’s quest chain will eventually find themselves deep in the bowels of their fortress, The Castle (known in our time as Fort Independence.) One room features the corpse of the previous Minutemen general, who drank himself to death while hiding from enemies, and, weirdly enough, a skeleton chained up inside the walls. This decor might seem a little strange even by the Commonwealth’s standards, unless players notice that the bottles of wine near the general contain amontillado. The room is a reference to Edgar Allen Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, in which the narrator gets a rival drunk and entombs him alive inside a brick wall. Another wrinkle to this reference? Poe was stationed at Fort Independence during his military years.   

Power Noodle

fo4 noodle bot screen
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Diamond City has its share of noir motifs, with private investigators, intrepid journalists, organized crime, and so on. There are subtler nods to noir, however, like the Japanese-speaking noodle vendor, Takahashi. The robot will sell the player noodles, and in conversation will only say “Na-ni shimasu-ka?” (“What will you do?). This is an homage to the sci-fi neo-noir film Blade Runner, where protagonist Deckard eats at a noodle bar run by a chef who asks customers the same question. This is far from the only Blade Runner allusion in Fallout games; New Vegas featured a pistol modeled on Deckard’s unique revolver.

Nick Valentine and the Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger, a trenchcoat-clad gunslinger straight out of a noir film, has been a presence since the original Fallout, with perks that occasionally summon him to the player’s aid. But who is he? Where does he come from? What does he want? Players have been asking those questions for years, but characters in Fallout have never acknowledged the Stranger’s existence. Well, not until Fallout 4 introduced android detective Nick Valentine, that is. Players who travel with Nick and use the Mysterious Stranger perk may have noticed that Nick comments on the Stranger’s appearances. If players do a little detective work of their own, they can even find Nick’s case file on the Stranger, stashed under the bed in his office. It’s an entertaining read, and a good treat for longtime Fallout fans.

Spare parts from the Nostromo

fo4 alien reference
Image used with permission by copyright holder

One of the repeatable quests for the Brotherhood of Steel sends the player to a variety of locations to pick up high-tech equipment. Most of these items seem to be random gizmos, but one in particular hides an easter egg for sci-fi fans. The flux sensor has “CM-88B 180924609” written on the back. This code may seem random, but Alien fans will recognize it as the serial number for the Nostromo, the CM-88B Bison freighter that the film is set on. It’s unclear what Scribe Haylen intends to do with all the parts the player collects for her. Perhaps the Brotherhood is a front for Weyland-Yutani?

Editors' Recommendations

Will Nicol
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Nicol is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends. He covers a variety of subjects, particularly emerging technologies, movies…
The best Fallout Shelter tips and tricks
fallout shelter number one falloutsheltertopapp

Fallout Shelter has been on the market for nearly five years now, and much has changed in the Wasteland since those early days. The game was a massive departure for Bethesda, a company usually known for its sprawling open-world titles. Not only was the overall game design radically different from past Fallout titles, but Fallout Shelter was also originally released as a mobile title before being ported over to consoles.

If you're returning to Fallout Shelter after a long hiatus, there's a lot of new content for you to explore. And even if you've established a thriving Vault, there are plenty of actions you can take to optimize your setup. Here are a few tips to make your time with Fallout Shelter more efficient.

Read more
The best free PlayStation 4 games available today
a player skydives in Call of Duty: Warzone

The best free-to-play games are often underrated. While some of the criticism is well earned, there are a lot of excellent free-to-play titles available. For those tired of spending $60 for the latest AAA games, here are the best PS4 games that you can download and play immediately at no cost.
Call of Duty: Warzone

It may not be the first Call of Duty game to do battle royale, but it's certainly the best -- not just in the franchise, but in the entire genre. Warzone has already amassed incredible acclaim, garnering a whopping 30 million players in little over a week since it was first released. The sprawling world map of Verdansk is an incredible sight to see and well equipped for the 150-player matches.

Read more
The best Fallout 4 mods
Everyone's Best Friend

The Fallout games, at least since Fallout 3, have been absolutely massive games in both scale and popularity. The post-nuclear war setting is rife with interesting stories to experience and monsters to kill. Fallout 4 was the last single-player entry in the series before Fallout 76 took the game into a persistent multiplayer experience. A large appeal of these games is how you are able to actually role-play and immerse yourself in the game world, which isn't so easy with other players jumping around in their underwear. Thanks to mods, it has never been a better time to revisit the last "pure" Fallout game.

Just like Skyrim, Fallout 4 mods are incredibly popular. Some are inspired to fix the numerous bugs and glitches Bethesda games have become famous for, while others look to add new features. As open and dynamic as the base game is, mods just open the door to an almost endless supply of tools you can use to extend the life of your game. With so many mods available, it can be a little overwhelming to know where to start. We've sorted through all the best Fallout 4 mods out there and came up with the best ones you should install before stepping out of the vault once again.

Read more