Fallout world FAQ

Why does the world look like 1950s even though the Great War was in 2077?
The Fallout series is set in an alternate timeline that diverged from ours in the 1950s. In the 21st century, it looked like the future as imagined in the 1950s pulp science fiction. E.g. instead of transistors you have huge vacuum tube-based computers with artificial intelligence and monochromatic terminals, robotic servants, a pseudo-utopian society based on 1950s values, black and white TV, music from the 1950s considered all-time classics, and most modern musical genres never appearing, etc,. Weapon development was also different from ours and thus plasma and laser weaponry was introduced, 10mm became the most common ammo type, etc. The modern high-tech weapons were never created - instead, weapons based on how people in the 1950s thought 21st century weaponry would look like are used.

What are deathclaws mutated from?
The deathclaws were originally created before the Great War by the United States military, in order to replace humans during high-risk close-combat search-and-destroy missions. They were Jackson's Chameleons genetically modified with DNA of various other species.

The Master also experimented on the deathclaws early on, but his experiments were not very successful, and eventually they were not used in his army. However, some of the modifications he made to their genome refined them into even more dangerous beasts.