The Fallout series is a household name in the gaming sphere, a celebrated set of role-playing games with a post-apocalyptic slant and a frequ⛄ently satirical tone. Plenty of fans still swear by Interplay's first two mainline titles; many more are far more familiar with Bethesda's best-selling pair of follow-ups. Additionally, Fallout 76 and the Obsidian-developed spin-off Fallout: New Vegas have their fair share of diehards.

But did you know those chapters are just the tip of the radioactive iceberg? In💮deed, both Interplay and Bethesda have a few more Wasteland tales than many꧅ gamers realize. What's the tally, then? Let's see...

Updated April 22, 2024 by Quinton O'Connor: It might not surprise you to know that Amazon's Fallout TV show has revitalized ongoing interest in the IP. The games are being played by so many people right now that they're topping digital storefront charts left and right. Well, here they are!

Fallout (1997)

Fallout owes its origin story to the efforts of legendary gaming industry icons like Tim Cain, Feargus Urquhart, and Christopher Taylor. Cain'sܫ vision of a post-apocalyptic world was fairly unique at the time for meshing the requisite trappings of the end-of-the-world genre with a distinctly retro-ꦅfuturistic slant.

Initially, publisher Interplay regarded Fallout a🧸s a cheap project for its role-playing games department to slap together in a hurry. Lauded for its vast world and combat system, Fallout went on to sell roughly 600,000 copies. A sequel was soon given the go-ahead.

Fallout 2 (1998)

In many ways, Fallout feels like Fallout 2's clunky prototype. The first game, while enjoyable on its own merits, lacks its sequel's narratiﷺve punch. Fallout ℱ2 is also chock-full of pop culture nods and a much deeper character interaction system.

Set 80 years after the events of the first game, Fallout 2 tells the tale of a hero who sets out to save their settlement, Arroyo, and clashes wi𝓡th the nefarious Enclave along the way. Contemporary critics piled on the praise, and a not-inconsiderable number of fans still consider the game to be Fallout's low-𝔍key greatest installment.

Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001)

The series' first spin-off, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, was developed by Micro Forte and is without a doubt the studio's most widely ꧟known work. Unsurprisingly, it follows the exploits of the titular Brotherhood of Steel, a group that scours the ruin🐼ed world for remnants of pre-war technology.

Along the way, the faction launches violent campaigns against vicious mutants and some rather mean-spirited robots. With an increased emphasis on tactics-based battles, and a significant decrease in conver꧟sation opportunities with non-player characters, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel sports a very different vibe.

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (2004)

Wait a minute. Didn't we just go over this game? Did Interplay seriously publish two Fallout games with nearly identicaꦏl names? Yes. Yes, they did. Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is a purely console-based outing that makes its predecessor's differences from mainline installments seem positively minuscule in comparison.

Linear and less concerned with the "crunchier" side of RPGs, Brotherhood of Steel does include a few trademark bells and whistles, such as a morality system, but substantially simplifies these mechanics. Its art style isn't exactly in-sync with o🙈ther 🌳chapters, either.

A direct sequel was planned, but poor sales and a midd✱ling reception nixed it in♊ the bud.

Fallout 3 (2008)

If your familiarity with the Fallout series begins here, no one can blame you for it. In its first week on the market, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout 3 sold more copies than every previous game combined. Bethesda took a risk, purchasing the rights to a franchise that had never quite blown 💯the roof off of financial expectations. Needless to say, the risk paid of🔥f.

Fallout 3's brand of open-world gameplay, a robust variety of character growth systems, and a fulfilling sense of dialogue choices made for a fresh take in the RPG world. Its original ending was a far cry from beloved, leading Bethesda to take the unprecedented action of tossing in a DLC that rewrites that ending entir𓂃ely.

Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

For some, everything Fallout 3 did, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout: New Vegas did better. Recognizing Fallout 3's tremendous success, but too busy crafting The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim to do anything about it firsthand, Bethesda 🦂contracted Obsidian Entertainment to develop a spin-off using the 2008 game's engine.

Obsidian's key personnel included — and still include — people like Feargus Urquhart who played a major role 🍸in the development of Fallout and Fallout 2. Owing in large part to this little twist, much of Fallout 2's sardonic spirit can be found in this story of an over-their-head courier traipsing across the Mojave.

While not as popular as the game it spun off from, Fallout: New Vegas has acquired quite the cult following in the many years since its arrival. Many fans cite the degree in which pla😼yers can influence the plot, and the hilariously dark choices ther൩ein, when proclaiming this chapter Fallout's finest.

Fallout Shelter (2015)

When it was announced in June 2015, the hype for Fallout 4 was through the roof. With seven years having passed since the previous mainline game, the fandom was stoked to see what was in the works. Available immediately after the announcement, the mobile tie-in Fallout Shelter quickly racked up heaps of downloads.

Fallout Shelter eschews exploration-based adventure in favor of casting players in the role of Overseer of their very own Vault. To keep the growing number of inhabitants satisfied, important staples such as food, water, and power sources must be found and mainꦰtained.

While Fallout Shelter's free-to-play nature has invited a veritable smorgasbord of microtransactions, the game has seꦕen a degree of continued success with numerous consol♉e ports in the years since its mobile launch.

Fallout 4 (2015)

Of course, the big-ticket item in 2015 was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout 4 itself. Sales were predictably phenomenal, and most reviewers praised it as one of the year's best games. The grim beauty o𓆉f post-apocalyptic Boston is commonly cited as one of Fallout 4's greatest s🐷trengths, elevating the series' renowned sense of odyssey to its zenith.

Advancements in the gunplay and an intriguing settlement-construction mode further assist the fourth major entry in standing out from the rest of the p💫ack.

Not every aspect of Fallout 4 is held in near-universally high regard. Some fans have opined that Bethesda's decision to feature a fully-voiced protagonist hampered dialogue♋ options to a noteworthy degree. But it's obviously a winner in Bethesda's book regardless, continuing the IP's trend of generating boatloads of profits.

Fallout Pinball (2016)

This exists, yep. Fallout Pinball is available on iOS and Android - which isn't surprising - but it's also available as part of the Bethesda Pinball Collection, which, if we're being honest, we had no idea that exꦕists until we wrote this. Some journalists we are!

Fallout Pinball is centered chiefly on Fallout 4, so you'll see plenty of elements from that game when you're knocking that ball around with those flippers. There are tidbits from other🀅 entries as well, however. Just not nearly as many.

Fallout 76 (2018)

On the other hand, initial reactions to the reveal of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout 76 were... te𒀰pid's a nice word for it, right? This multiplayer-centric prequel originally eschewed non-playable characters entirely, wit🏅h Bethesda's marketing team emphasizing that interactions between real players would more than make up for the radical departure in style.

Time has been kinder to Fallout 76. The developers have worked tirelessly to improve the game in as many ways as possible, including expansions that ha🌜ve added many NPCs and more choice-driven storytelling.

At the very least, Fallout 76 is an interesting volume in the book th🃏at is Fallout history. Its announcement was actually accompanied by the unveiling of both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6; clearly, the good folks up in Maryland knew they had to establish a few reassurances just in case.

Fallout Shelter Online (2019)

If Fallout Shelter is your thing, you may enjoy Fallout Shelter Online, which launched in China back in 2019 before slowly making its way into other territories. It's more of the same, really💜; new content certainly exists, but the fundamentals are essentially Fallout Shelter in a PvP-permitting wrapper.

That said, it's loaded wit📖h gacha microtransactions. The global versions do🅘n't appear to get updated especially frequently, either, though in fairness it's a bit long in the tooth for a game of its subgenre.

The Not-So-Final Tally

As it stands, there are 11 games in the Fallout series. While the brand has changed in many 🐬ways throughout the decades, that dreary-yet-quirky Nuka Cola flavor has never faded away.

It's probably a safe assumption that Bethesda isn't finished pumping out Fallout games, especially when Amazon's television adaptation is so wildly successful. Whether Fallout's future comes in the form of a formal Fallout 5, a 🌟collection of spin-offs, or (most likely) both remains to be seen.