Vault Boy

Vault Boy is the corporate mascot of the Vault-Tec Corporation, appearing in their adverts, manuals, products, holotape games and training films. His female counterpart is Vault Girl.

Background
Vault Boy is a registered trademark of the Vault-Tec Corporation and is used widely throughout game guides and manuals, sometimes referred to as "Vault-Man". In the years before the war, RobCo and Vault-Tec forged a corporate alliance, the Vault-Boy mascot appearing on RobCo Pip-Boy personal computers.

Vault Boy often appears in cross-promotions with other corporate products, such as with the Nuka Tapper holotape game, and was also to appear in some issues of the "Hell's Chain Gang" comic of Hubris Comics.

Game use
In the Fallout games, Vault Boy is used to provide a representation of almost all stats (perks, traits, skills, etc.) and items in later games available to the player character, being a generic representation of one's actions and survival, and also appearing in achievements and trophies for Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.

The design of the dwellers and the general art style of Fallout Shelter and Fallout Shelter Online is derived from both Vault Boy and Vault Girl.

Appearances
The Vault Boy appears as a representation of almost all stats in all games and equipment in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. It also represented in Vault-Tec bobbleheads appearing in Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, and snow globes containing a Vault Boy appearing in Fallout: New Vegas.

He also appears in a Vault-Tec commercial on TV in the Fallout intro, in the "Leaving The Vault" Vault-Tec's video in Fallout 2, the What makes you SPECIAL public information video series in Fallout 4, and the You Will Emerge! educational film series in Fallout 76. He also appears as an actual person in a special encounter in Fallout Tactics, and in Shop-Tec interface in brown hair version in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

Behind the scenes

 * The character is referred to as both Vault Boy and Pip Boy. For the design, Tim Cain stated that Leonard Boyarsky asked "T Ray Isaac to draw something like Mr. Moneybags in Monopoly." Boyarsky described the design, as his "idea/design for the “Vault Boy” and the “cards” (as I called them) showing him doing all the different things in humorous ways. By the way, he’s not the Pip Boy, the Pip Boy is the little guy on your Pip Boy interface. The Vault Boy was supposed to evoke the feel of Monopoly cards, and the Pip Boy was based on the Bob’s Big Boy mascot." Cain stated that "PipBoy is the yellow and red caped character who appears on the pipboy device." Tramell Ray Isaac noted that the thumbs up is "basically saying everything is ok, when it really isn't ..nothing more than that."
 * Brian Menze was responsible for Vault Boy images in Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas.
 * Fallout Tactics Vault Boys were drawn by Ed Orman.


 * In other media
 * He also appeared in the 2002 action-adventure third-person shooter video game Run Like Hell: Hunt or Be Hunted (a game that was also made by Interplay), on candy bars called "PIP Boy Protein Bars™," with the Vault Boy Buffout addiction image on them.
 * A Vault Boy bobblehead appears in id Software's RAGE, whose story is set in a post-apocalyptic world similar to Fallout.
 * In Doom (2016), Vault Boy appears in the game as a part of the UAC's line of Marineguy toys, known, fittingly, as "Vault Guy."
 * In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018), Vault Boy appears as a DLC Mii costume for the Mii Gunner, wielding an Alien blaster.
 * A Vault Boy puppet appears in One Man, and a Crate of Puppets.