Set in the scorched ruins of Southern California long after a global nuclear war, you are the Vault Dweller, tasked with leaving the safety of underground Vault 13. Your immediate mission is to find a replacement Water Chip before your home's life support system fails completely. Outside, you uncover a grim society of scavengers, mutants, and cultists, eventually stumbling into a terrifying eugenics plot orchestrated by a biomechanical entity known as The Master.
Visual Archive
Behind The Scenes
The game was originally engineered to utilize Steve Jackson Games' popular GURPS ruleset. However, when Interplay dropped the license due to creative and artistic disputes regarding the game's extreme violence, designers Tim Cain and Christopher Taylor quickly engineered the SPECIAL system (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) from scratch. This accidental pivot created one of the most flexible character progression matrices in digital RPG history.
