Fallout Season 2: 25 Video Game Details and Easter Eggs in Episode 1

8. One location that is definitely in Fallout: New Vegas is the Dino Dee-lite Motel. Arguably one of the Mojave wasteland’s most iconic landmarks, in this part of the timeline, the Great Khans have seemingly taken control of it at the expense of the game’s previous occupant, Jeannie May Crawford, who ran it fifteen years earlier in 2281.

9. Dinky the T-Rex is the motel’s looming dinosaur mascot, and he looks just like he does in New Vegas. In a clear reference to the video game, Lucy uses its gaping mouth as a sniper’s nest, just as Craig Boone and Manny Vargas once did.

10. The Dino Dee-Lite motel is what the town of Novac is built around, having gotten its name from the damaged “No Vacancy” sign that sits outside of it. In the game, its residents describe it as “a small oasis in a big desert”, but it looks like it’s seen better days in the show.

Items and Iconography

11. A nice little detail is the shield and skull decoration seen in Novac. This is a reference to the Great Khans ending slide from the first Fallout, which you may have seen based on the choices you’d made in that original Interplay Productions game.

12. And of course, it wouldn’t be Fallout with Nuka Cola. A vending machine for the wasteland’s favourite carbonated drink can be seen in Novac by the motel.

13. Caffeine isn’t the only drug rife in the Mojave, though. This Great Khan member can be seen inhaling some Jet, a powerful hallucinogenic chem that gives the user a brief period of enhanced awareness. In the games, this translates as slowing down the action around you to give the player an edge in combat. Incidentally, the most common form of Jet is created using the fumes emanating from the dung of Brahmin (Fallout’s multi-headed bovine).

14. The Ghoul can be seen using a device that produces a green light or mist to heal the cuts on his neck. This appears to be a brand new device created for the show, but it could be a miniaturised version of Fallout 76’s Stimpack Diffuser, which creates a cloud of green healing mist.

15. Of course, there are also more traditional ways of harming your insides. Big Boss cigarettes are a very common brand in the Fallout universe, and we can see Mr House with a pack of them in the opening.

16. If you’re more of a straight-edge kinda person, perhaps we can interest you in some of the wasteland’s more precious items – purified water. A bottle can be seen on the floor of a vault back in Los Angeles.

17. Another great way to restore some health in the Fallout games is by eating some Sugar Bombs. An incredibly sugary breakfast cereal, a box can be spotted in the far less sweet-looking medical facility inside Vault 24.

18. Back in the very Fallout 4-looking town in the middle of the episode, we can spot a Vault-Tec van, presumably belonging to the aforementioned salesman. In case you don’t know, Vault-Tec is the company responsible for building and maintaining the hundreds of nuclear bunkers across North America.

19. And don’t get too excited, but that isn’t the only van-related detail, as in the episode’s opening scene we are shown a Radiation King van behind Robert House. Radiation King is an electronics company that, among other items, makes many of the televisions spotted across Fallout’s wasteland.

20. Speaking of technology and Mr House, could the neck-mounted radio chips that he uses to overpower the construction worker’s brain be an early prototype of the Mesmetron, or perhaps a competing design from RobCo Industries? The Mesmetron is a mind control device that we’ve only previously seen in Fallout 3. This unique weapon was developed by Implied Hypnotics Inc. and grants the player the ability to confuse enemies, and even make their heads explode.

21. Speaking of non-Fallout: New Vegas-related items from the games making their way into the TV show, the Whack a Commie! arcade machine from Fallout 4’s Nuka World expansion can be seen being played by Cooper’s daughter, Janey, in a flashback.

Music

22. Music is a huge part of the Fallout games, and that’s no different in the show. During the Novac shootout, we can hear “Big Iron” by Marty Robbins. This track features in Fallout: New Vegas and has lived a long life since, becoming a meme in its own right.

23. “It’s All Over” by The Ink Spots can also be heard in the episode. This is from Fallout 4, with The Ink Spots being a 1930s and ‘40s group that has become synonymous with the games, having had songs featured in multiple entries.

24. “Make the World Go Away” is a country song originally written by Hank Cochran. Though not in any Fallout, a cover of it has been used in a video game: GTA San Andreas, which also visits Las Vegas as one of its key locations.

25. A couple of other tracks also get aired throughout the season two premiere: A cover of “Cheek to Cheek” by Frank Sinatra, and “Workin’ For the Man” by Roy Orbison. These have no connection to the already established Fallout universe as far as we can tell, but do fit the vibe perfectly.

And that’s everything we spotted in the first episode of season two of the Fallout TV show. Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments. For more Fallout, check out our review of the premiere, and stay tuned next week for all of episode two’s easter eggs.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.