Mock the apocalypse from the luxury of these Fallout-worthy doomsday bunkers

Why merely survive the apocalypse, when you can pay a little extra ahead of time and actually thrive? In a bid to guarantee there'll be a handful of seeds left to re-sew civilization once the worst happens, one company is carving out some seriously posh and elaborate doomsday bunkers for those with the foresight and the cash to have a place to crash when humanity finally hits the reset button.

In a real-world scenario that'll sound familiar to any gamer who's stalked the hallways of the underground survival vaults in Bethesda's Fallout series, a company called Vivos is building a self-sustaining "global shelter network" that offers early adopters (can there be any other kind?) the assurance that all their dystopia-averting needs will be provided for, and then some if only they can make it to their shelter in time.

If you're thinking basement-dank temporary housing and cramped spaces with only the bare minimum needed to make ends meet, think again. As it turns out, not even the nicest of Fallout's Vault-Tec offerings is quite as posh as the real-world version, which Vivos bills as "a modern day Noahs' Ark" that offers nothing less than "a solution for the continuance of life, providing a 'biosphere' to survive an Earth-devastating catastrophe."

Credit: Vivos Group

Peppered throughout the world, the company's shelter sites range from Vivos xPoint (seen in the first clip above) an array of nearly 600 private military-built bunkers in the Black Hills of South Dakota – all the way to Vivos Europa One (shown in the second clip) – an especially well-appointed subterranean mini-city in Germany, carved from solid bedrock during the Cold War and reclaimed from the Soviets for private use. There's also a shelter site in Indiana, as well as a line of portable underground "Quantum shelters" that can be shipped right to your homeand then buried in your yard.

Credit: Vivos Group

What kind of catastrophe-weathering bona fides do these facilities possess? Well, Vivos says its Europa One shelter can withstand "a substantial close range nuclear blast, a direct airliner crash, biological and chemical agents, massive shock waves, earthquakes, electro-magnetic pulses, flooding and virtually any armed attack." That sounds like plenty of peace of mind for the roughly 1,000 residents Europa One is designed to accommodate.

Decking out the post-apocalypse in luxury doesn't come cheap, but pricing doesn't seem nearly as astronomical as the exclusivity of being one of the last living people on the planet might suggest. A space of your own at South Dakota's Vivos xPoint can be had for $35,000 upfront, plus an ongoing $1,000 per-year ground fee (think of it as a cataclysmic HOA membership). For that price, you get a bare-bones, completely off-grid bunker as-is, but a quick glance at Vivos' xPoint page invites you to unleash your imagination when it comes to poshing things up.

Finally, what's to stop you from just buying a space in one of these things and moving in on a permanent basis? Having a reservation aboard Noah's Ark wont do you much good, after all, if youre hundreds of miles away when the infrastructure to help you get there melts down.

Sadly, Vivos already has ixnayed that idea. "With the exception of frequent weekend retreats for all shelter co-owners, designed to meet each other and train for the operation of their shelter, the facility may only be used for survival protection in a life-threatening or emergency situation," the company advises. "Otherwise, co-owners cannot stay overnight in the shelter unless an emergency or catastrophic event is imminent, or has already occurred. Vivos is not a second-home, resort, hotel, or recreational facility, nor are the properties zoned for multi-family housing."

Bummer. But at least when the bombs fall, the locusts swarm, and the zombies attack, youll be safely ensconced in luxury where you and your fellow survivors can chart humanitys new course at your leisure, while cooking up an entirely new batch of post-apocalyptic first-world problems.