Fallout is an American media franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games created by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, at Interplay Entertainment. The series, set in the first half of the 3rd millennium, follows the descendants of survivors of a mutually destructive nuclear exchange between the United States and China that marked the culmination of a series of conflicts over resources which began in the middle of the 21st century. The games share an atompunk retrofuturistic setting and artwork influenced by the post-war culture of the 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. Fallout is regarded as a spiritual successor to Wasteland, a 1988 game also developed by Interplay.
The series' first title, Fallout, was developed by Black Isle Studios and released in 1997, and its sequel, Fallout 2, the following year. With the tactical role-playing game Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, development was handed to Micro Forté and 14 Degrees East. In 2004, Interplay closed Black Isle Studios, and continued to produce Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, an action game with role-playing elements for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, without Black Isle Studios. Fallout 3, the third entry in the main series, was released in 2008 by Bethesda Softworks, and was followed by Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment released on October 19, 2010. Fallout 4 was released in 2015, and Fallout 76 released on November 14, 2018.
Bethesda Softworks owned the rights to the Fallout intellectual property before it was acquired by Bethesda Zenimax Media, which is now the current owner. After acquiring it, Bethesda licensed the rights to make a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) version of Fallout to Interplay. The MMORPG got as far as beta stage under Interplay, but a prolonged legal battle between Bethesda Softworks and Interplay disrupted the development of the game, eventually resulting in its cancellation. Bethesda argued in court that Interplay had failed to fulfill the terms and conditions of the licensing contract. The case reached a resolution in early 2012.
Origins The ideas of the Fallout series began with Interplay Productions' Wasteland, released in 1988. At that time, Interplay was not a publisher and used Electronic Arts for distribution of the game. According to Interplay's founder, Brian Fargo, they wanted to explore a post-apocalyptic setting and created Wasteland for that. Sometime after release, Interplay decided to shift focus and become a publisher while still developing games. Fargo wanted to continue to use the Wasteland intellectual property but could not negotiate the rights back from Electronic Arts.
Still wanting to do something in a post-apocalyptic setting, Fargo and his team decided to make a new setting and game. They determined what aspects of Wasteland were positives and wrote and developed a new game around them. According to designer Chris Taylor, they took major inspiration from the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) and the films Mad Max 2 (1981) and The City of Lost Children (1995). The result was the first Fallout games, which were released nearly ten years after Wasteland.
Games
YearTitleDeveloperPlatform(s)Computer Home console MobileMain series1997FalloutInterplayWindows, MS-DOSClassic MacOS, Mac OS X1998Fallout 2Black IsleWindows2008Fallout 3BethesdaPS3, Xbox 3602015Fallout 4BethesdaPS4, Xbox One, PS5, Xbox X/S, Switch 2Fallout 5Spin-offs2001Fallout TacticsMicro Forté Windows2004Fallout: Brotherhood of SteelInterplay PS2, Xbox2010Fallout: New VegasObsidian Windows PS3, Xbox 3602015Fallout ShelterBethesda Windows PS4, Xbox One, SwitchiOS, Android2016Fallout PinballZen Studios Windows PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U2018Fallout 76 Bethesda WindowsPS4, Xbox One2019Fallout Shelter OnlineGaea MobileiOS, AndroidUntitled Fallout ProjectObsidian
Main Series Fallout (1997)
Released in October 1997, Fallout takes place in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, beginning in the year 2161. The player character, known as the Vault Dweller, is tasked with retrieving a water chip in the Wasteland to replace a malfunctioning unit in their underground shelter, Vault 13. Afterwards, the Vault Dweller must thwart the plans of a group of mutants, led by a grotesque entity named the Master. Fallout was originally intended to run under the GURPS role-playing game system. However, a disagreement with GURPS creator Steve Jackson over the game's violent content led Black Isle Studios to develop the SPECIAL system instead. The game's atmosphere and artwork draw inspiration from post–World War II American culture during the Cold War era, particularly fears of nuclear warfare in the United States.
Fallout 2 (1998)
Fallout 2 was released in October 1998, featuring several technical and gameplay improvements over the original title, including an upgraded game engine, customizable party-member behavior, and the ability to push non-player characters (NPCs) blocking doorways. The game expanded on the original's dark humor with additional pop culture references, parodies, and self-referential fourth-wall dialogue. Taking place eighty years after the events of Fallout, the narrative follows the Chosen One—the grandchild of the original Vault Dweller—on a quest to retrieve a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK) to save the village of Arroyo from famine. During their journey, the Chosen One comes into direct conflict with the Enclave, the autocratic remnants of the pre-war United States government.
Fallout 3 (2008)
Fallout 3 was developed by Bethesda Game Studios and released on October 28, 2008. The story picks up thirty years after the setting of Fallout 2 and 200 years after the nuclear war that devastated the game's world. The player-character is a Vault dweller in Vault 101 who is forced to flee when the Overseer tries to arrest them in response to their father leaving the Vault. Once out, the player is dubbed the Lone Wanderer and ventures into the Wasteland in and around Washington, D.C., known as the Capital Wasteland, to find their father. It differs from previous games in the series by using 3D graphics, a free-roam gaming world, and real-time combat, in contrast to previous games' 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat. It was developed for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 using the Gamebryo engine. It received highly positive reviews, garnering 94 out of 100, 92 out of 100, and 93 out of 100 averages scores on Metacritic for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, respectively. It won IGN's 2008 Overall Game of the Year Award, Xbox 360 Game of the Year, Best RPG, and Best Use of Sound, as well as E3's Best of the Show and Best Role Playing Game.
Fallout 4 (2015)
Fallout 4, developed by Bethesda Game Studios, was released on November 10, 2015. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, of the in-game New England Commonwealth and features voiced protagonists. The Xbox One version has been confirmed to have mods . Bethesda also confirmed mods for PlayStation 4, after lengthy negotiations with Sony. A virtual reality version of the game was released on December 11, 2017, available on SteamVR. Fallout 4 takes place in the year 2287, ten years after the events of Fallout 3. Fallout 4s story begins on the day the bombs dropped: October 23, 2077. The player's character (voiced by either Brian T. Delaney or Courtenay Taylor), dubbed as the Sole Survivor, takes shelter in Vault 111, emerging 210 years later, after being subjected to suspended animation. The Sole Survivor goes on a search for their son who was taken away from the Vault.
Fallout 5 (TBA) In June 2022, Todd Howard stated in an interview that Fallout 5 would begin development after the completion of The Elder Scrolls VI, with an unspecified release window.
In July 2025, Fallout 5 was reportedly "fully greenlit," with development moving forward though the reporting outlet indicated that it remains unclear which studio (if any) is leading its production, as key studios at Bethesda were occupied with Starfield DLC and The Elder Scrolls VI at the time.
In July 2026, the game was officially announced to be in pre-production.
Spin-offs Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001)
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is the first Fallout game not to require the player to fight in a turn-based mode, and the first to allow the player to customize the skills, perks, and combat actions of the rest of the party. Fallout Tactics focuses on tactical combat rather than role-playing; the new combat system included different modes, stances, and modifiers, but the player had no dialogue options. Most of the criticisms of the game came from its incompatibility with the story of the original two games, not from its gameplay. Fallout Tactics includes a multiplayer mode that allows players to compete against squads of other characters controlled by other players. Unlike the previous two games, which are based in California, Fallout Tactics takes place in the Midwestern United States. The game was released in early 2001 to generally favorable reviews. In 2020, Emil Pagliarulo stated that elements and lore from Fallout Tactics have been used in Bethesda Softworks' subsequent entries in the series.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (2004)
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel became the first Fallout game for consoles when it was released in 2004. It follows an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel who is given a suicidal quest to find several lost Brotherhood Paladins. Brotherhood of Steel is an action role-playing game, representing a significant break from previous incarnations of the Fallout series in both gameplay and aesthetics. The game does not feature non-player characters that accompany the player in combat and uses heavy metal music, including Slipknot, Devin Townsend, and Killswitch Engage, which stands in contrast to the music of the earlier Fallout games, performed by The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers, and Louis Armstrong. It was the last Fallout game developed by Interplay.
Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and released on October 19, 2010. The development team included developers who previously worked on Fallout and Fallout 2. Fallout: New Vegas is not a direct sequel to Fallout 3. Events follow four years after Fallout 3 and offer a similar experience, but no characters from that game appear. The player assumes the role of a courier in the post-apocalyptic world of the Mojave Wasteland. As the game begins, the Courier is shot in the head and left for dead shortly before being found and brought to a doctor in the nearby town of Goodsprings, marking the start of the game and the Courier's search for their would-be murderer. The city of New Vegas is a post-apocalyptic interpretation of Las Vegas.
Fallout Shelter (2015)