All ‘Fallout’ Games & the Best Order in Which To Tackle Them

Amazon Prime will venture into the wasteland with the premiere of Fallout on April 12. Adapted from the Bethesda Softworks flagship video game series, the Fallout TV series will take place chronologically after all of the video games to date, meaning a new cast of characters and new horrors in an irradiated world.

If you want to get a jump on Fallout content before the series premiere, you can dive into the video games themselves, each of which takes place in a different city. However, playing them in release order won’t give you the real timeline of events. The best way to play the Fallout games is in story order, which we’ve laid out below.

Which Fallout game should you play first?

If you don’t want to play the entire Fallout series and want a taste of what to expect in the Amazon Prime series, we suggest jumping into Fallout 4, Fallout 3, or Fallout: New Vegas, which are generally agreed to be the top three games in the series. It’s worth noting that although it’s not the #1 game in the series, Fallout 4 is the most recent single-player title and it’s fairly accessible to gamers of all skill levels. It’s also available on most modern gaming consoles. Bethesda has promised a “next-gen update” for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X, which should be released later this year.

If you don’t want to go out of order, then buckle in for a long ride. There are seven must-play Fallout games and more than a dozen expansions across Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4. Note: Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel isn’t included on this list because it takes place in a separate chronology. The mobile game Fallout Simulator also isn’t on this list because its place in time makes it non-canonical.

Here’s how to play the series in story order.

1. Fallout 76 (2018)

Released in 2018, Fallout 76 is the first game in the series’ chronological timeline. It’s a multiplayer online game that follows the first-ever vault dwellers to re-enter the irradiated world a quarter-century after the 2077 outbreak of nuclear war. As a player, you make your way through Appalachia in search of the vault’s missing overseer. Mutants, killer robots, and zombie-like, irradiated humans called Ghouls litter your path, making survival incredibly hard.

Because Fallout 76 is online, you can team up with others to build bases, complete quests, and create new communities in the wasteland. The game was widely panned upon release, but several improvements and updates have been released since.

2. Fallout (1997)

The first Fallout game was released in 1997 and it takes place 59 years after Fallout 76. When the water system inside Vault 13 fails, you must venture into the wasteland to find a new water chip and then return. Unfortunately, a bunch of Super Mutants get in the way, as they are wont to do.

The gameplay in the first Fallout feels super different from the rest of the series, partially because of its era. It uses a top-down camera and turn-based combat, but player choices impact the story and immersion is a major focus, which contributed to its positive reception from players and critics. To this day, it’s beloved by the fandom.

3. Fallout Tactics (2001)

Technically, Fallout Tactics is a spin-off that isn’t 100 percent part of the Bethesda canon for the series, but certain events in this strategy game are referenced in other games, so we’re keeping it on the list. Tactics takes place 30 years after Fallout and you play an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel who travels with the army to complete various quests across the Wasteland. Much like Fire Emblem and other strategy-based games, you control the entire squad as you fight iconic Fallout monsters seen throughout the series.

4. Fallout 2 (1998)

Fallout 2 takes place 44 years after Fallout Tactics and 74 years after Fallout. It follows a descendent of the vault dweller from the first game, who’s selected as the Chosen One to track down a terraforming device called the G.E.C.K. to save their settlement from a lingering drought. Along the way, they encounter the super-advanced faction known as the Enclave, which has been conducting “social experiments” on vault dwellers for years.

5. Fallout 3 (2008)

Bethesda Softworks purchased the rights to the Fallout license from Interplay Productions in 2007 and released Fallout 3 a year later. Set 30 years after Fallout 2—188 years after the Great War destroyed the planet—the game takes place in the Capital Wasteland and players take the role of a vault dweller known as the Lone Wanderer. Their father disappears and they’re consequently exiled, forcing them out of the sealed Vault 101 they call home and across the wasteland to find their dad. The Enclave seems to be involved in his disappearance, and the stakes are higher than ever.

Fallout 3 is a total revamp of the series, with a full-scale 3D world, a first-person camera, a proper targeting system, and real-time combat. There are five expansions for the title, which should be played in this order for chronology: “Operation Anchorage,” “The Pitt,” “Point Lookout,” “Mothership Zeta,” and “Broken Steel.”

6. Fallout: New Vegas (2010)

Fallout: New Vegas is a spinoff developed by Obsidian Entertainment set four years after Fallout 3. After you’re ambushed, shot, and left for dead in the Mojave Wasteland while you’re en route to deliver a package to Las Vegas, you’re rescued by local settlers whose swift first aid gives you the chance to hunt down your attacker. Unfortunately, that lands you in the middle of a massive power struggle, and the more you learn, the more control you can wield over what happens next.

Fallout: New Vegas has four expansions, which should be played in this order: “Dead Money,” “Honest Hearts,” “Old World Blues,” and “Lonesome Rode.”

7. Fallout 4 (2015)

Fallout 4 begins with a bang—literally. After the opening sequence on the day nuclear war breaks out, you become the Sole Survivor of Vault 111, where you’ve been cryogenically frozen for 200 years. In that time, your spouse was killed, your son went missing, and the world is an absolute wasteland. As you traverse what was once the greater Boston area to find your son, you encounter the scientific faction called the Institute, which is systematically kidnapping humans in the wasteland and replacing them with sentient robots. To stop them, you’ll have to unite other factions throughout the wasteland, which is no easy task.

Fallout 4 has four expansions, which should be played in this order: “Automaton,” “Far Harbour,” “Vault-Tec Workshop,” and “Nuka World.”

(featured image: Bethesda Softworks)