Fallout games in order: By release date and timeline

FALLOUT is a game which sees the world after a Great War which saw great damage due to nuclear weapons and now survivors need to figure out how to keep surviving Earth.

Here is all you need to know about the Fallout games, their orders and any spin-off games created.

Fallout games release order

The games show how life is after the Great War, a war which lasted two hours on October 23, 2077 and caused great damage because of nuclear machinery.

Before that came the Resource Wars which saw a conflict between the European Commonwealth and the Middle East in 2052, the United States invaded Canada and China took over Anchorage, Alaska.

Fallout

Platforms: PC

This game was released on October 10, 1977 and a sequel was immediately announced to it.

This game uses a SPECIAL character creation system, with the SPECIAL standing for: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck.

The player in this game is the Vault Dweller, who is basically a survivor that leaves in a vault.

The problem is that the water chip to Vault 13 is broken and so the water recycling and pumping machinery are not working.

The player has about 150 days before they run out of water and seeks help from The Hub who give him the mission to kill the Master who believes that if humans become mutants, they will become closer to each other.

Fallout 2

Platforms: PC

This game was released on September 30, 1998 and sees the end of the Vault Dweller after he was exposed to the outside toxic energy for way too long.

He moves to Arroyo after he’s exiled from his Vault 13, and eventually disappears.

But now, in 2241, Arroyo are suffering a record drought and so the village elder ask the Chosen One, who is the descendant of the Vault Dweller to go find the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK).

This device can help flourish the community who is suffering post-apocalyptic war.

Fallout 3

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

It is now 200 years after the Great War in the game released on October 28, 2008.

This game will explore the story of the Lone Wanderer who lived in Vault 101 and is in search for their father, James.

While doing so, he gets caught up in trying to survive and in a battle among the factions that want to reclaim the wasteland.

It doesn’t follow from the other games mainly because the developer switched from Black Isle Studios to Bethesda Game Studios.

Fallout 4

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

The game released on November 10, 2015, now looks at the story of the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 who is in search of their missing child Shaun.

While trying to search Boston to find Shaun, the Sole Survivor comes across The Institute – an organisation that is paranoid about synths which are biological human-like robots.

It faces ethical questions about how far science should be experiments, about the morals involved when it comes to creating machines that can feel and express emotions and suffering like humans and what it means to be human.

Fallout 5

Platforms: TBC

Fallout 5 has been confirmed but is yet to come out.

Bethesda are currently focused on the 2023 release of Starfield and then they have Elder Scrolls 6 to work on, so it might take a while to see Fallout 5 come out considering the time needed to attend to such projects.

Fallout timeline order

Below are the time periods in which the games take place.

The five man games are all released in order of the timeline.

• Fallout – 2161
• Fallout 2 – 2241
• Fallout 3 – 2277
• Fallout 4 – 2287

What are the Fallout spin-off games?

Fallout also had some other spin-off games made which are available on PC and console.

These are:

• Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001)
• Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (2004)
• Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
• Fallout Shelter (2015)
• Fallout 4 VR (2017)
• Fallout 76 (2018)
• Fallout 76: Nuclear Winter (2019)
• Fallout 76: Wastelanders (2020)
• Fallout 76: Steel Reign (2021)