What is Liberty Prime From the Fallout Games?

If you just finished watching the finale of Fallout season two, hopefully, you hung around until the end for its post-credits scene. That’s because within it hides the blueprints for “Liberty Prime Alpha” — a name that will excite you if you’ve played the Fallout games, but may confuse you if you haven’t. Rest assured, though, because we’re here to tell you exactly why you should be eagerly anticipating its apparent arrival in Fallout’s third season.

To cut to the chase, Liberty Prime is a giant robot originally built by the United States Army in the years before the Great War that turned America into the wasteland it is today. A 40-foot-tall metal monster packed with extreme power, including highly destructive head-mounted energy cannons and a seemingly endless supply of throwable explosives, it’s quite the weapon of mass destruction. Think the Iron Giant, but nowhere near as friendly.

Initially conceived in 2072 and planned for deployment against the communist forces of China in Alaska, Liberty Prime never actually made it into battle, despite being fully constructed, as a sufficient power source was never obtained. That doesn’t mean it would never see any action, though, as this colossus appears in both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Let’s take a look at what it got up to in those games, as well as theorise a little about how it could be deployed in season three of the show.

Fallout 3

Liberty Prime would sit dormant for many, many years after the bombs dropped, until it was rediscovered in 2255 amongst the ruins of Washington, D.C., the setting of Fallout 3. For over 20 years, the Brotherhood of Steel worked away on restoring the war machine with mixed results, until its eventual revival in 2277. Its first taste of action would come in a battle against the Enclave, where it destroyed many of the shadowy faction’s forces as the Brotherhood laid claim to the fallen capital’s Jefferson Memorial.

The Brotherhood would repeat this tactic for another couple of weeks, with Liberty Prime too strong a foe for the Enclave to handle. But soon this tactic would prove predictable, and the giant robot would eventually be lured into a trap that would see orbital weapons descend upon it. Following its destruction, the Brotherhood attempted to rebuild it, but to no avail. Instead, its shattered remains would be left to rust deep in storage until the next person was bold enough to build it again.

Fallout 4

A decade later, in 2287, someone would try to do exactly that. This time, a chapter of the Brotherhood headquartered in Boston decided that it needed the power of the walking superweapon to turn the tide in its battle for the Commonwealth. This effort would take many years to come to fruition, as Liberty Prime’s components had to be airlifted along America’s East Coast and pieced together in Massachusetts. Such a mammoth effort was required to combat the newly risen synth threat — an AI lifeform created by the scientific faction called the Institute.

A newly improved Liberty Prime MK II, packed with a laser capable of carving tunnels down into the earth and the ability to deploy mini nukes, then took to the streets of Boston. Depending on your actions at the end of Fallout 4, Liberty Prime can either be destroyed again or live to fight another day as it roams the Commonwealth in the service of the Brotherhood.

Fallout: Season Three

So, this brings up the curious case of how Liberty Prime will be deployed in the Fallout TV show. Set in 2296, nine years after Fallout 4, the show could directly tie into the events of the Brotherhood’s Boston bust-up by having Elder Quintus claim components for Liberty Prime from the Commonwealth. However, considering his civil war antics and the death of Paladin Harkness, it seems unlikely his Boston brothers will consider Quintus an ally anymore. It’s also worth considering that the blueprints are for “Liberty Prime Alpha”, which is presumably a model that pre-dates the MK II version deployed in Boston, and perhaps even the original robot created for the Alaskan front. It seems possible that we’ll be seeing a brand new version of the iconic robot, designed especially for the show.

Declaring himself “Quintus the Destroyer”, it seems like the Knights of San Fernando chapter will be on a nuclear warpath next season. But who will be in his crosshairs? Will his mission be to wipe out the other chapters, or will the violence see The Brotherhood put on a collision course with the New California Republic?. Will season three’s apparent Colorado location be the backdrop for their war? The potential imagery of a looming Liberty Prime walking a warpath towards Denver could well be on the horizon. A mile-high robot in the mile-high city? We wouldn’t say no.

Do you think we’ll see a fully rebuilt Liberty Prime in Fallout season three? Or do you think the showrunners have different plans for The Brotherhood’s iconic massive robot? Let us know in the comments!

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.