Yao Guai: the Mutated Bears of Fallout

Yao guai are mutated bears, descended from America's pre-war black bears, and one of the deadliest animals in the Fallout wasteland. They first appear in Fallout 3 and turn up again in Honest Hearts, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. In the TV series, a yao guai is the animal that mauls Knight Titus in season 1. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4; Fallout, "The Target")

What is a yao guai?#

A yao guai is a bear changed by radiation. Fallout 3's loading screens describe them as fast, powerful predators "descended from the area's black bears", and Fallout 4 calls the yao guai a ferocious mutated bear. They are bigger and more aggressive than the bears they came from, and they will attack people and most other animals on sight. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

The guide on a terminal in Tenpenny Tower sums them up as the Capital Wasteland's version of bears, with "razor sharp claws, razor sharp teeth" and a nasty temper, and it warns readers not to expect one balancing on a ball like a circus bear. (Fallout 3)

Where does the name yao guai come from?#

The name has an in-world origin. Fallout 4 says yao guai were first named by the descendants of the people held in Chinese internment camps before the Great War. (Fallout 4)

In the real world, yaoguai is a Chinese word for a monster or demon, which suits an animal that can kill an armed traveller in a few blows. (Fallout 4)

Yao guai in the games#

• Fallout 3 (2277): Yao guai roam the hills and caves of the Capital Wasteland, often at night and in pairs. Not all of them are wild: some wandering scavengers travel with a tamed yao guai that guards them and their goods. (Fallout 3)
• Honest Hearts (2281): There are no yao guai in the Mojave itself, but Zion Canyon in Utah has them, including giant yao guai. The Sorrows tribe tell of the Ghost of She, a yao guai that ate a girl who wandered into its cave before her naming ceremony; they believe the two became one. The Courier can hunt it after drinking a shaman's datura tea, and sees it as a giant, burning bear. (Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts)
• Fallout 4 (2287): Yao guai live across the Commonwealth, alongside stunted, albino and darker, scarred "dusky" variants. Far Harbor adds irradiated yao guai and ghoulified ones on the Island, and in Nuka-World the Pack raiders keep one caged. (Fallout 4; Fallout 4: Far Harbor; Fallout 4: Nuka-World)
• Fallout 76 (2102 onwards): Yao guai already roam Appalachia when Vault 76 opens in 2102, 25 years after the bombs, usually in twos or threes. (Fallout 76)

The yao guai in the Fallout TV show#

The show's yao guai appears in season 1 episode 2, "The Target". Knight Titus, chasing the Enclave defector Siggi Wilzig, orders his squire Maximus to check a building without armour, and a huge bear charges out and mauls Titus instead. (Fallout, "The Target")

Pinned and dying, Titus complains about having "a two-ton irradiated bear" on his back and demands a stimpak. Maximus, sick of being bullied, refuses and watches him die, then takes his power armour and his name. The bear sets off Maximus's whole season 1 story. (Fallout, "The Target")

The show never says the word yao guai on screen, but the animal is the series' take on the games' mutant bear. (Fallout, "The Target")

How dangerous are yao guai?#

Very, though they aren't the wasteland's top predator; that's the deathclaw. Even so, a yao guai will take on other monsters: in Nuka-World one can be found fighting a gatorclaw in a cave. (Fallout 3; Fallout 4: Nuka-World)

They breed in the wild, too. Zion Canyon's Ghost Den holds yao guai cubs as well as adults, and in the Commonwealth they turn up in pairs. (Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts; Fallout 4)