Vault 76

Vault 76 is a Vault-Tec vault located in the Forest region of Appalachia in 2102.

Background
Construction of Vault 76 began in 2065 and ended in 2069, under the supervision of Vault-Tec official Giles Wolstencroft. Vault 76 then debuted seven years later in 2076, in honor of the United States' tercentenary.

Not all vaults were designed with experimental purposes. Vault 76 is one of seventeen known "control" vaults, meaning that it was used as a baseline to compare to experimental vaults. Vault 76 housed 500 occupants and was originally programmed to open to the wasteland outside 20 years after a nuclear war. Despite being a control vault, however, Vault 76 had a number of distinguishing characteristics. The occupants were a diverse group selected from every walk of life, and apart from the vault staff, all were highly accomplished before the war and possessed competitive personalities. The vault itself was also designed to cease functioning and be rendered inhospitable 24 hours after opening, a feature intended to force the residents to commit to reclaiming the outside world and prevent them from becoming dependent on the vault's amenities. Lastly, the vault's overseer was under secret orders to personally secure three nearby nuclear missile silos for Vault-Tec at all costs.

Vault 76 eventually opened in 2102, twenty-five years after the Great War and five years after the intended date, in a much-celebrated event known as the "Reclamation Day". By the time of opening, the vault was implied to be nearing maximum capacity.

Layout
A large atrium complete with tables, a diner and a soccer pitch in the middle. The upstairs levels of the atrium contain accommodation for the residents, complete with beds, color TVs and a wall-mounted Pip-Boy 2002 for the player character as they leave. Several Mister Handies throughout the vault. However, to prevent the dwellers from never leaving the vault, the vault’s main systems were to be shut down shortly after Reclamation Day. Unlike other vaults which have a security checkpoint, blast door and elevator to head deeper into the vault, Vault 76 has its blast door level with many of the vault’s more critical rooms.

Appearances
Vault 76 appears in Fallout 76. It is mentioned in a terminal entry found in the Citadel in Fallout 3, an alien log in the Mothership Zeta add-on, and by a newscaster at the start of Fallout 4.