While we've encountered many vaults throughout the Fallout series, the exact figure of how many are dotted around the wasteland has never been established. However, this was something the original creators did consider when they were writing the world of Fallout — and they intended for there to be a lot more than what we see in the games.
Fallout creator Tim Cain just shared this tidbit on his YouTube channel, as he shares a story from the first game's development. Here, he says that the designer of the iconic vault suits, Leonard Boyarsky, asked how many numbers the back of the outfit would have to accommodate. Cain settled on three digits, with the vaults running from Vault 0 to Vault 999.
Fallout Creator Planned For 1,000 Vaults In Fallout
"The original design for vaults was that there was going to be one thousand," says Cain."The only reason this pin was placed in the original game was when Leonard [Boyarsky] was doing the vault suit, he asked me how many digits he'd need to keep on the back. Because we had Vault 13, but he wanted to know [is] there going to be Vault 106, [is] there going to be Vault 1,218? And I thought, well, let's just say there's a round number, there's a thousand."
He then adds that this doesn't mean that Vault 1,000 exists, but rather that the final Vault would be 999, with Vault 0 acting as a control vault. Even then, he says it's likely Vault-Tec wouldn't have actually lived up to its obligation of creating this many vaults.
As Cain in the video, we're nowhere to seeing 1,000 vaults in Fallout. There's still lots of room for the writers to come up with more gimmicks for the hundreds that remain unexplored.
Cain also stresses that what he says should not be considered canon, just something that was considered during his time on the Fallout series. Bethesda has never established a limit on how many vaults exist in Fallout, so this isn't to say that there are definitely 1,000 vaults out there — just that the original team saw it as a possibility.
We'll have to wait and see if future games dive into the lore of Vault-Tec a bit more and make an exact number canon. In the meantime, clearing up enough space for three digits on a vault suit has been utilised in the series, with Fallout 3 starting us off in Vault 101, and Fallout 4 in Vault 111.
