Fallout 76's Vault was referenced in Fallout 3, a whole 10 years before it eventually released

Fallout 76 was mentioned in the Fallout universe as far back as 2008, a decade before it released in 2018.

Fallout games often delve into the inner workings of various Vaults scattered throughout America, and that's exactly how one veteran Fallout 3 player has made the discovery below. It turns out that a Terminal within the Citadel mentions Fallout 76's Vault 76 as being one of the "seventeen control vaults," which will be run entirely according to Vault-Tec's marketing materials.

This means the Vault had no weird experiments going on within it, unlike some of the other Vaults you can uncover in multiple Fallout games. In fact, this is pretty integral to the plot of the recent Fallout TV show, and while we won't spoil the details here, the TV show makes a point of hammering home just how weird the Vaults can actually get.

The catch for this is revealed in the Terminal summary: Vault 76's residents would be automatically pushed back up to the surface after 20 years, no ifs or buts. This is almost accurate to Fallout 76 - in Bethesda's multiplayer game, the player is pushed to the surface on 'Reclamation Day,' which falls exactly 25 years after the nuclear bombs first started descending on America.

There's probably an inner lore working as to why the opening date was delayed by five years, rather than this being a lore oversight from Bethesda. If the Fallout TV show has taught us anything, it's that Todd Howard and company are meticulous when it comes to figuring out the lore and the world-building of the Fallout series.

Read up on our Fallout Season 2 guide for a look over everything we know about the Prime Video show's eventual return.