The Fallout series has come a long way since the release of its award-winning first game in 1997. Set in the post-apocalyptic future of an alternate history of the world, gamers fell in love with its grown-up themes, great humor, and gritty take on the tactical role playing game genre. Most of us did not expect the series to ever return after Fallout 2, but Bethesda bought the franchise to revive it with Fallout 3. It’s a completely different game from what it used to be—an open-world, first-person shooter—but fans of the series are just happy it came back, and Bethesda did a great job preserving the retro style and great humor we fell in love with.
However, the transition from Black Isle Studios’ Fallout to Bethesda’s was not a seamless one. Putting the camera so close to the ground brings the player a lot closer to the inconsistencies and general weirdness of Fallout logic, and a lot of the new game mechanics lead to hilarious situations. Artistic fans have made comics poking fun at these ridiculous moments that every Fallout player can relate to. For a game with endless possibilities, the Fallout experience is surprisingly universal.
We’ve scoured the internet for the best Fallout comics out there to keep you laughing through the long winter. So sit back, grab a Nuka-Cola, and enjoy the funniest comics of situations your Vault Dweller definitely experienced wandering the wasteland.
20 Oddly Immersive
Fallout 4 disappointed many gamers who had hoped to jump into it with weapons blazing. Each of these tedious situations occurs far more frequently than battles in Fallout 4, and most of these are things you’re likely to do at the mall: searching in vain for a specific item, carrying heavy shopping bags around, and getting stuck behind people who think the foot of an elevator is the perfect place to stop and chat.
It’s so mundane that it feels natural, and you play it out of habit more than anything.
On the other hand, anyone who says decorating isn’t exciting is a liar. The least accurate thing about this comic’s pie chart is how little is taken up by decorating. Building your own settlements is the best part of Fallout 4, for a lot of players.
Comic by Cad-Comic.
19 Video Game Needs
Aren’t video games great? They let you be whoever you want to be, and give you an easy escape from your mundane life. They give you an excuse not to go out and maintain your friendships, or build new ones, or to pretend you even cared about having a life in the first place.
If you’ve ever called in sick to work because of a new game release, or missed your cousin’s wedding because of an important World of Warcraft raid, this comic might hit a little too close to home.
The ironic parallel of staying in for months to play a game about emerging from a fallout shelter is unsettling. Is Fallout 4 a metaphor for where you went wrong in life? Don’t think about it. By the way, “Internet Gaming” is currently being studied for inclusion in the DSM.
Comic by TubeyToons.
18 A Rude Awakening
VATS (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) mode is one of my favorite features in modern Fallout games. It’s a throwback to the earlier instalments of the series, back when Fallout was a turn-based, tactical RPG. VATS mode is there for fans of the series who aren’t keen on First-Person Shooters, letting you pause the action and queue up some actions for a more tactical approach.
The downside to VATS mode is the odd randomness of your weapon accuracy, leading to the above scenario. This comic does not exaggerate!
This has happened to me more times than I can count. It doesn’t matter that the mutant is asleep, or that his head is enormous. It’s hard to think of anything more frustrating than games with a random chance to miss what should be an easy shot.
Comic by KCGreen.
17 The PC Experience
PC gamers can be snobby at times, but there’s one reason they will tell you that PC is the only way to play Bethesda games: mods. If you’re going to sink hundreds of hours of your life into a video game, you want to maximize that experience any way you can, and mods open up countless ways to tailor a virtual world to suit your needs.
Fans have created mods that improve scenery, add thematic songs to the soundtrack, and even seamlessly insert entirely new characters and stories into the game.
If you think a My Little Pony mod is far-fetched, look up the Skyrim mod that replaces dragons with Thomas the Tank Engine, or the Left 4 Dead mod that replaces all zombies with adorable kittens.
Console gamers will never know just how bizarre Fallout can be.
Comic by SuperYummyJello.
16 Pokémon Never Changes
Pokédex entries can get pretty weired when describing the power of Pokémon, so a Pokémon-triggered global issue isn’t out of the question. Magcargo is hotter than the surface of the Sun, and Dusclops apparently has a black hole inside it. If you take Pokémon science at face value, it’s a miracle Ash Ketchum hasn’t already caused the end of the world.
Interestingly, this comic reverses a popular fan theory about the Pokémon universe. The theory states that Pokémon are humans and animals that mutated after a giant war. After all, Pokémon understand human language, and they share significant traits with people and animals from the real world.
The comic presents a fan theory that doesn’t require as many leaps of logic, but it’s just as fun to imagine that Fallout is where Pokémon leads.
Comic by Zody.
15 Megaton Changed Us
Megaton is the first major settlement you find in Fallout 3 after leaving your vault for the first time in your life, so it’s not surprising it’s become such an iconic location for many gamers. It’s the first major quest hub, full of people to talk to or pickpocket, stores to shop at, and homes to inspect. Megaton’s most striking feature is its namesake, the massive, undetonated leftover at the centre of town. As soon as you see it, you know what’s coming.
Megaton’s issue is basically Fallout’s Sword of Damocles.
You might go into Fallout 3 with every intention of playing a hero, but the quest to blow it up for some quick cash is a serious test for that conscience. What, are you just going to leave that dormant thing sitting there? I dare you to say you didn’t blow up Megaton.
Comic by Dorkly.
14 No Time For Sentimentality
It was a valiant effort the way Fallout 4 writers tried to get players emotionally invested in the story by giving us all a missing son to rescue, but it’s hilarious how easily you can get distracted by other tasks—it’s almost like they knew no one would care about rescuing Shaun. The best part is the weird dichotomy of the Vault Dweller’s motivation and the player’s control of your character.
You’ll spend one moment swearing revenge, and the next moment gleefully ripping apart the furniture your loved ones slept in.
A lack of sentimentality is consistent with Fallout’s style of humor and gritty atmosphere, however. This winter is tough, but there’s no time for weakness because your calendar’s booked solid with building settlements and drinking toilet water.
Comic by IsItCanon.
13 Why We Love Our Pup
Dogmeat has been a companion for Vault Dwellers ever since Fallout 1, usually available to players shortly after leaving the vault, assuming they offer him food. Everyone’s Fallout experience differs, but Dogmeat is the one companion we all had. He’s definitely your player’s best friend: he fights alongside you, he finds loot you missed, and he will never turn on you or abandon you no matter how evil you become.
It’s shocking how much loot Dogmeat can carry, though.
Loot is always weird in Fallout games, where every single object has a set weight to count against your inventory weight limit, but you could walk around without clothes and still have a place to store thousands of pencils.
It’s great that Dogmeat finds us so many goodies, but where does he store them? If this comic is any indication, some questions are best left unanswered.
12 Open World Distraction
Open-world, sandbox games like Fallout are a real trial for gamers who get distracted easily. First I want to rescue my son, then I need to check out this abandoned house… and now there’s a weird mutant who needs my help, but first I need to decorate this new settlement I just built—I wonder if the materials I need for this couch are in that cave over there…
Before I realize what’s happened, I’m running errands for a boss to get close to the local warlord, and take him for all he’s got.
Also, it’s 4am and I haven’t showered in three days.
It’s easy to get distracted in a big sandbox like the world of Fallout, but luckily, the main story is so lacking that you’re not missing—oh look, another comic!
11 War Does Change
One of the most significant changes going into Fallout 4 compared to its predecessor is the role of loot, thanks to the addition of settlements. Now that the Vault Dweller can found his own settlements all across the Commonwealth, players can lose countless hours building whatever they want with the myriad options provided.
Supporting this new mechanic is a crafting system that revolves around repurposing random junk into useful building materials, incentivizing players to hoard literally everything they find out in the wasteland.
It’s no wonder trash became treasure in Fallout 4.
It’s an intense process that appeals to all sorts of gamers: hardcore gamers want access to better shop inventory and other mechanical advantages through these settlements, while virtually everyone else wants to build the prettiest, most well-fortified village they can.
Comic by Rogihar.
10 Keeping It Together
Somehow, the music radio station in Fallout is simultaneously its best and least fun feature. It’s brilliantly immersive: a soundtrack of old American standards that players can tune in to on their personal radios for some background music while they wander the wasteland. Most of the songs are pretty great, too, and it’s nice that Fallout brings back these old classic to a young generation of gamers.
Unfortunately, people sink hundreds of hours into Fallout, and these catchy tunes don’t last nearly that long.
The first evening you forget to turn off the radio, you’ll realize you’ve heard the same song about 20 times, and you just know it will be stuck in your head for weeks. This is why some ghouls went feral: it was the only way to escape Fallout’s repetitive radio station programming.
9 Robot Laws
The robot in this comic is so ungrateful! Anyone should be grateful for a romance with Fisto the robot! But, get your head out of the gutter! Fisto stands for Fully Integrated Security Technotronic Officer. Fisto does it all: he patrols, he fights, and he can even romance the Vault Dweller for one magical evening.
He even looks good in a wedding dress.
This comic is hilarious, but it also shines a spotlight on the position of robots in Fallout society. I don’t know what kind of laws protect robots in New Vegas, but I doubt they can legally marry without agreeing of their own free will. The Yes Man is completely incapable of declining an order, so that’s the worst case of no-free-will there ever was. If it’s any comfort, Fisto probably can’t do much harm to him.
8 Easily Replaced
I’m glad Fallout doesn’t make you have the talk with your companions whenever you replace them because it happens a lot. This comic gives you a glimpse of what things would be like if they didn’t gloss over dumping your companions all the time.
It’s odd that you can make your adventuring partner spend the rest of his or her adult life waiting for you, but it’s even stranger that they don’t seem to care. You share a two-sentence exchange, tell them you need to part ways, and they just go back to your settlement until you want them around again.
That ambitious, clever journalist who teams up with you to get the next big scoop? She’s okay with playing house in a town populated only by other discarded companions. Considering how poorly the Vault Dweller treats Fallout companions, they are super understanding.
7 Random Loot
Every Fallout gamer at some point takes a moment to wonder, “Who would put this in a safe?” Searching for loot is a massive part of the experience, but sometimes you find random junk in the most nonsensical places.
You have to wonder who decided to lock up a string of copper wire in their safe.
It’s easy to accept the absurdity of loot placement without thinking about it because you’re so desperate for loot. The new settlement needs a couch, after all. Still, you can’t miss how random the items within a carefully locked safe are: was everyone with a safe just paranoid in the Fallout universe?
Perhaps it’s such a big world that the environment designers just stopped trying after a while—or they knew players wouldn’t care as long as they get more junk to decorate their settlements with.
Comic by Dueling Analogs.
6 Impenetrable Wooden Doors
There’s a popular Fallout meme of a door with a massive hole in it, with a lock that requires a mastery of lock picking to bypass. It never gets old. Why can’t the Vault Dweller reach through the hole and unlock it, or even just climb through to the other side?
Between drinking toilet water and struggling with doorknobs, I’m beginning to think the Vault Dweller dropped his intelligence attribute.
Obviously level design requires some content be gated behind barriers, so players have something to work for, but these locked, broken doors are annoying.
The worst thing is that these doors are incredibly durable! You can’t even shatter the glass with a grenade, despite the fact that an explosion clearly created that gaping hole in the first place. They probably should have used different art for locked doors, to at least give the appearance of impenetrable security.
5 No One Cares
In addition to being adorable (look at Dogmeat’s cute, pudgy face!), this comic really nails the Fallout 4 experience, right down to the armful of desk fans. Those fans are everywhere, and they break down into valuable parts. It’s a shame Dogmeat can’t see the value in such treasure.
Then there’s Shaun, the son we always need to be reminded of.
It’s great that the writers wanted to sink their teeth into telling an emotional story, but no one picks up Fallout because they want to roleplay spending time with their family. Fallout is for scrounging the wasteland for junk while fighting mutants over bottle caps. Don’t even try to make me care about a long-lost child I’ve never even seen.
We’ll always love Dogmeat, though. He just needs to collect something of actual value.
Comic by ElectricBunnyComics.
4 Instant Village
In Fallout 4, the Vault Dweller can not only rescue outposts, but found entire towns. The crazy thing is that it basically happens overnight, with absolutely no helpers. You have to jump through a few hoops before you can build a settlement at a location, completing a quest for the locals to earn their trust and stabilize the area.
Once that’s taken care of, you can create an instant village out of nothing, and one one bats an eye.
Sure, no one wants to watch the Vault Dweller chopping wood and planting crops, but they could at least show a time lapse to give some indication that building settlements takes work. For a game series known for being harsh and gritty, founding new villages with bustling economies feels way too easy.
Comic by Poly-Morph.
3 When You Drink Coffee Again
It’s a common situation in games with consumable items that you end up hoarding them all, because you want to save them for an emergency. Usually, you end up beating those games before you use any of the items you’ve been saving, but Fallout goes on forever.
Sooner or later, you’re going to lose your patience and break out the bag of goodies.
And boy, does it make a difference having some Jet up your sleeve for when things really get dicey.
Once you finally open up your inventory to consume some items, it’s easy to overdo it and use all the things: explosives, rare ammo, one-use invisibility devices, and chemicals. Chemicals in Fallout make you incredibly overpowered, with the slight drawback of being way too fun. Good thing this is so easily curable in the future.
Comic by Phuzzy Comics.
2 But I Was Going To Drink That!
The rejuvenating power of water is beyond miraculous in Fallout. Broken limbs, wounds, ghoul bites, and any other injury you can name are all curable with enough water bottles. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, the Vault Dweller will quench his thirst at the rim of a toilet bowl without a second thought, and walk away with all his battle wounds healed.
In fact, water is such a valuable commodity that it’s unlikely a bandit would use a toilet for the purpose it was invented for.
He can go in the bushes for that, no need to waste water! Everyone in the Fallout universe should know what a magical elixir water is. That guy was definitely just mad the Vault Dweller drank his dinner. That is so rude.
1 Dangerous Aim
For someone who takes on mutant armies single-handedly, it’s weird how uncoordinated the Vault Dweller can be sometimes. The situation in this comic is surprisingly common: all it takes is a shaky hand for you to take a big gulp of radiated toilet water when you’re trying to grab the loot floating inside. It’s like he secretly wants a face-full of the stuff. I don’t know what toilets were like back in the vault, but surface toilets in Fallout are not the least bit appetizing.
Nevertheless, the Vault Dweller has a mighty thirst.
Despite being utterly bad, it is a nice touch that the drinking of toilet water is an option. It helps you remember how dire things are in the Fallout universe, that water is scarce enough for a man to drink it from literally anywhere. Let’s hope that first aid kit on the wall has some Rad-X. Toothpaste wouldn’t be bad either.
Comic by WhompComics.
