A rogue Deathclaw's emergence in Fallout Season 2's fourth episode has fans asking, "What's a Deathclaw doing in Alaska?" It appears to be due to the U.S. government's secret pre-war plan. Over the years, the Deathclaw has become something of a pseudo-mascot for the Fallout universe. The gargantuan bipedal lizard creature can be encountered in every game in the hit series of post-nuclear RPGs, making their eventual appearance in the Fallout show highly anticipated among fans.
Fans finally got a taste of these horned horrors as a part of Fallout Season 2, Episode 4 ("The Demon in the Snow"). The episode was bookended by Deathclaws, with one appearing on the streets of New Vegas to close it and, confusingly to some, another kicking things off in the snow of an Alaskan flashback.
The show's latest episodes opened with a peek back at Cooper Howard's role in the Sino-American War. This sequence followed Walton Goggin's wartime hero, sporting a suit of power armor and taking on rival troops. The scene closed with a Deathclaw emerging from the shadows behind Cooper, killing his unarmored foes and leaving Cooper to lie in the snow.
The Deathclaw's appearance on the Alaskan Front furrowed some brows among viewers, as the beasts are mostly known for their appearances post-war and never nearly as far north as the battle taking place on-screen.
Why Was a Deathclaw in Alaska in Fallout Season 2?
Even though the Fallout franchise has never featured the Deathclaws in Alaska in such a public way before, the creature's appearance in the northern-most state does not break canon by any means.
Many fans assume that the Deathclaw was a result of the bombs being dropped after the events shown to kick off Fallout Season 2, Episode 4, but that is not the case. Deathclaws were not the result of radiation, like some of the other creatures of the Fallout world were; instead, they were actually creations of the U.S. military.
These hulking beasts were developed by the U.S. government before the war for use in battle, with the specific use case of carrying out high-risk, search-and-destroy missions instead of human troops. After the bombs dropped, the Deathclaw population was released into freedom, reproducing and evolving to become the apex predator of the Fallout wasteland.
Fallout Season 2's Alaskan Deathclaw was likely one of these earlier iterations of the claw-bearing titans. It was likely deployed by the U.S. military during the battle on the Alaskan Front, thus why it knew to kill the Chinese troops bothering Cooper Howard but not Howard himself.
Thus far in the Fallout canon, there are no examples of Deathclaws being present in Alaska during the war, but there is also no evidence to suggest that they were not.
There is also the chance that this particular Deathclaw was not meant to see battle at all. During the wartime flashback, the creature can be seen emerging from what seems to be the wreckage of a ship. Perhaps the beast was simply being transported from one U.S. government lab to another and was shot down in the crossfire.
With four more episodes of Fallout Season 2 left to air, and plenty of potential connections to unique experiments gone wrong (like the Deathclaw), fans may get even more context for the creature's emergence on the Alaskan Front over the next couple of weeks.
New Episodes of Fallout Season 2 continue, dropping every Wednesday through February 4 on Amazon Prime Video.
