The Fallout show clearly took inspiration from several elements of the video game series, and one of the biggest parts incorporated into the series were perks and abilities from the Fallout games. There are several indirect references to the video games in the Fallout show, but the show also brought several elements parts of the games over as they were. Those include story elements, like Fallout‘s New California Republic, but it also applies to a central part of gameplay: perks and abilities.
In the Fallout games, perks were special modifiers that gave players unique abilities and advantages as they made their way through the wasteland. They ranged from simple tweaks that made surviving the world of Fallout easier, to massive changes that transformed the player into a truly fearsome warrior. The Fallout show included several such abilities, and many of them work just as they did in the games. Not all of them were easy to spot, though, and many of them might have been missed entirely.
One of the most memorable Fallout game abilities on display in the show was Bloody Mess, a perk that granted the player a chance to turn defeated enemies into a pile of gore. With Bloody Mess equipped, enemies could be dismembered or even completely explode due to a single bullet. In several of the games, Bloody Mess only offered players the chance to watch their enemies die horrifically. In Fallout 4, it also offered a damage increase and the chance to randomly kill other nearby enemies with the same shot.
The Fallout show’s use of Bloody Mess came early on, during the Ghoul’s rampage through Filly while trying to capture Siggi Wilzig in episode 2. After Ma June offered a reward to the entire town for killing him, the Ghoul had to defend himself. He might have gone a bit overboard, though, as several of the people he killed in the town were left with smashed heads and gaping holes through their bodies. That level of bodily carnage was extremely reminiscent of the Bloody Mess perk, and it even worked similarly to the games.
One of the less flashy, but infinitely useful, perks in the Fallout games was Strong Back. It was an extension of the Strength trait of the SPECIAL abilities, which governed how many items the player could hold, among other things like how much damage they could deal in melee combat. Strong Back was fairly simple, as all it did was increase the amount of weight the player could have in their inventory. Scavenging is an important part of Fallout, though, so Strong Back is a regularly used and often instrumental perk to have.
The Fallout show clearly understood Strong Back’s importance. In the show, both Maximus and Thaddeus were forced to carry a squire bag when they were serving their Knights in the Brotherhood of Steel. Those squire bags were massive and incredibly heavy, and it seems Strong Back was a prerequisite for becoming a squire.
Daddy’s Girl is one of the more unique perks in Fallout, as it only appeared in Fallout 3 and was directly tied to the game’s main story. In Fallout 3, players control the Lone Wanderer, a member of Vault 101 and the child of that vault’s overseer. The player’s father was a scientist, so Daddy’s Girl (or boy, depending on the player’s chosen gender) granted them a bonus to both science and medicine.
Lucy MacLean’s story shares several similarities with the Lone Wanderer’s, even down to having a scientist as a father. Lucy probably had the Daddy’s Girl perk, as she showed some impressive skill in both science and medicine, like when she reprogrammed the Mr. Handy robot or when she treated her stab wound in Vault 33. She also directly referenced how much she had learned from her father, Hank, in Fallout‘s first episode, as she said, “Obviously, mine are nothing compared to my dad’s, but I always relish a challenge!”
Power Armor Training is another unique perk in the Fallout games, as it was a late addition to the franchise. In Fallout and Fallout 2, the player didn’t need any training to use power armor, but beginning with Fallout 3, there was a perk dedicated to allowing the player to use it. The reason for that change is because power armor is only available late in the game in the early installments, so using it is more balanced. In later games, power armor is immediately available, and since it’s such strong armor, having it early in the game would make combat too easy.
Another reason Power Armor Training is so special comes from the Fallout show, as the main time it was referenced was by a character not having the perk. In Fallout, Maximus began using Knight Titus’ Brotherhood of Steel power armor before he had properly been trained with it, which caused some problems. Because he didn’t have Power Armor Training, Maximus got his foot stuck in Filly, allowing the Ghoul to damage his armor and escape.
In the Fallout games, the Chem Resistant ability granted players a decreased chance of becoming addicted to drugs. Since drugs often offer useful buffs and temporary stat improvements, using them can make the game much easier. However, using them too much can lead to addiction, a game mechanic that gives players debuffs when they hadn’t consumed a particular drug in a long time. Chem Resistant helped mitigate the chance of that happening, making it easier to temporarily improve whatever stats were desired.
The Fallout show doesn’t use Chem Resistant in exactly the same way as the games, but it was included. One of the Ghoul’s funniest lines came just after Lucy shot him with a tranquilizer dart in Filly, as he said “Well, now that is a very small drop in a very, very large bucket of drugs.” Despite the frequent drug use he hinted at, the only substance the Ghoul consistently needed was the yellow vials that helped him stay alive as a ghoul, showing that he wasn’t at much risk of addiction, possibly due to having Chem Resistant.
Friend of the Night was a little-known and mostly useless perk in Fallout: New Vegas. In the game, Friend of the Night granted the player a slightly brighter screen during sundown hours. The problem, though, is that New Vegas isn’t a particularly dark game, even at night, and Friend of the Night didn’t significantly brighten anything. There was also a drug that achieved the same effect without requiring any skill points.
Night Person, on the other hand, had far more benefits in Fallout 4. That game also isn’t particularly dark, so the night vision it granted also wasn’t very helpful, but it did have other advantages. With Night Person, players were given stat boosts to both intelligence and perception. It was an improvement over Friend of the Night, but it still was far from the best perk in the game.
Despite their lack of utility in the games, both Friend of the Night and Night Person took on much more prominent and useful roles in the Fallout show. The main use of these perks came during the Ghoul’s rampage through the Griffith Observatory. In one scene, the Ghoul removed the building’s fusion core, plunging it into darkness. Despite that, though, the Ghoul could see well enough to hit several perfect shots, which he used to his advantage to eliminate most of the Brotherhood of Steel’s forces in an epic display.
The Loner perk, later turned into the Lone Wanderer perk, was included in the Fallout games to help players who didn’t wish to travel with companions or had low Charisma. It boosted several areas of the player’s stats, such as damage and health, when they didn’t have any companions in their party. Companions often make combat much easier in Fallout, but they can also be quite annoying and glitchy, so Loner gives players who feel they’re not worth the trouble an extra advantage to compensate for not having their help.
The Ghoul, yet again, showed this ability best in the Fallout show. For much of the show, and the 200 years he had been living in the wasteland, he worked alone, largely because of the Ghoul’s backstory. As such, he had to be able to defend himself without backup, and Loner would have been a necessity. It’s clear he took that particular perk, as he was often shown to be more effective on his own than several other wastelanders were as part of an entire squad.
Attack Dog was another companion-related perk in the Fallout games, but this one specifically affected furry companions. Dogmeat has been a staple of the Fallout games, and Attack Dog turns him from a faithful friend to a truly fearsome element in battle. Attack Dog gives Dogmeat a few stat boosts, including increasing how likely he is to make enemies bleed or injure their appendages, and it also gives players a boost to their accuracy when commanding him.
The Fallout show saw Siggi Wilzig use Attack Dog the most. When Siggi escaped from the Enclave, Dogmeat proved himself to be incredibly important and vicious, as he tore apart a doctor with his teeth. That could be proof that Siggi had the Attack Dog ability, even though he didn’t need to command Dogmeat. It also looks like the Ghoul may be giving up his Loner perk in favor of Attack Dog, as he’s now traveling with Dogmeat after the end of Fallout season 1.
Many of Fallout‘s abilities are meant to help players survive the wasteland, and Lead Belly is no different. Lead Belly grants players better resistance to drinking irradiated and dirty water and eating radioactive food. It doesn’t have the best shelf life of all perks, but for early in the game when Stimpaks are hard to come by, Lead Belly can be a useful ability to take, as it allows the player to heal with more readily available options.
