Fallout Collection (White Label)

The background story of Fallout involves a "what-if" scenario in which the United States of America tries to devise fusion power resulting in the whole country becoming hegemonic and having less reliance on petroleum. However, this is not achieved until 2077, shortly after an oil drilling conflict off the Pacific Coast pits the United States against China. It ends with a nuclear exchange resulting in the post-apocalyptic world in which the game takes place.

Before the nuclear exchange took place, great underground Vaults were constructed across America, supposedly to protect the populace from the dangers of radiation. Although only 122 were constructed, over 400,000 would be needed to protect the entire nation. This is because the Vaults were not intended to save humanity; rather, they were social experiments being conducted by the United States government. Most vaults featured some variable to test how certain things influence people (and presumably the personal characteristics of the vault's occupants) such as Vault 69, which reportedly contained 999 women and one man.

Each installment of the series takes these facts as the context to the subsequent adventures: much of the landscape the player travels through is scarred with wreckage as well as radiation. These effects are not limited to the environment. Mutated survivors - those who lived through the attack outside a vault - are often physically unrecognizable as human. Even livestock - mostly represented by cows - are rarely if ever seen with fewer than two heads or an udder the size of their head.