Fallout Shelter
Fallout Shelter puts you in control of a state-of-the-art underground Vault from Vault-Tec. Build the perfect Vault, keep your Dwellers happy, and protect them from the dangers of the Wasteland.
Role-PlayingSandboxSimulationStrategySurvival
Your like matters. Every heart nudges this game's GamingPickz Score and where it ranks (a small 5% of the score), so the lists get better for everyone.
- Released
- 2015
- Developer
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Platforms
- 2 systems
- Critics
- 63
- Steam Deck
- verified
- Download
- 2 GB
What is Fallout Shelter?
Fallout Shelter puts you in control of a state-of-the-art underground Vault from Vault-Tec. Build the perfect Vault, keep your Dwellers happy, and protect them from the dangers of the Wasteland.
Description as published by the developer on its own store page, read 30 August 2026. It is marketing copy, not our assessment.
The record
| First released | 14 June 2015 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Bethesda Game Studios |
| Publisher | Bethesda Softworks |
| Platforms | Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck |
| Genres | Role-Playing, Sandbox, Simulation, Strategy, Survival |
| Languages | 6 supported |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q20116199, seeded 30 August 2026. Store data from Steam, read 30 August 2026.
How was Fallout Shelter received?
Method. Player figures are Steam's own totals for the PC version, read 30 August 2026. The Metacritic score is the one Steam publishes on its store page and can lag the site itself. Metacritic page. Neither is our opinion. We have not published a review of this game.
Accessibility
Seeing
None declared
Hearing
- Stereo Sound
Input
- Full controller support
- Playable without Timed Input
Difficulty
None declared
Method. Features the publisher declared on its own store page. A declaration is a floor, not a review.
What does it support?
| Capability | Support |
|---|---|
| Controller | full support |
| Cloud saves | Yes |
| Cross-platform play | No |
| Mod support | No official workshop |
| Online play | Single-player only |
| In-game purchases | Yes |
| Steam Deck | verified |
| Download size | 2 GB |
| Add-on content | None listed |
| Age gate | None |
Method. Read from the publisher's Steam listing on 30 August 2026. Describes the PC version. Console versions differ.
What does it cost?
Steam price in US dollars, read 30 August 2026. Prices move hourly and vary by region. Check the current price.
Is Fallout Shelter worth it?
88% of 82,585 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. It is free to play, and critics score it 63/100.
That is the data, not a verdict for sale: whether it is worth it depends on the price you pay and what you want. Players do report problems — see the reported-problems section below before buying. We have not published our own review of this game.
How long is Fallout Shelter? How long to beat it
Total play time for Fallout Shelter is about 97.2 hours to do everything, and around 17.9 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 17.9h | 40 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 53h | 70 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 97.2h | 109 |
Fallout Shelter is free to play, so the only cost is your time: about 17.9 hours to beat it.
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Fallout Shelter system requirements
The minimum requirements from Fallout Shelter's Steam page. These are what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings.
| Memory | 2 GB RAM (other games at this level) |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9550 @2.83GHZ |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1Ghz |
| Storage | 2 GB (more games this size) |
| System | 64-bit OS required |
Can your PC run it? Check Fallout Shelter against your exact GPU, CPU and RAM.
Where Fallout Shelter sits on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueFallout Shelter plotted on the axes the GamingPickz Score is built from, on the full 0 to 100 scale so its position is its real one. Change either axis to see where it lands.
1 games have both
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- Nintendo
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
Fallout Shelter price & deals: is it on sale?
We have one reading so far: Free on 30 August 2026. Prices are checked daily from here, and this becomes a chart once there is more than one point to join. A single observation is a price, not a history.
Latest Fallout Shelter updates & patch notes
Pulled from Fallout Shelter's own Steam feed on 5 September 2026. Posts marked as from the studio were written by the developer; the rest are articles Steam syndicated from elsewhere. Every one links to its source.
- Fallout Shelter’s House Always Wins season returns!
- The Viva New Vegas season is back!
- Fallout Shelter's newest season, Synthetic Identity, begins now!
- Fallout Shelter's newest season, In Gold We Trust, begins now!
- Fallout Shelter Ultracite Fever Season Begins Now!
- Introducing Fallout Shelter's newest season: House Always Wins!
What readers say about Fallout Shelter
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
Loading reviews…
Problems players report
We read the 300 most recent negative Steam reviews of Fallout Shelter on 30 August 2026 and counted what they mention. These are complaints, not confirmed defects: we have not reproduced any of them, and a review describes one person's machine. What the counts tell you is which problems more than one person ran into.
- Crashes and freezes33 of 300 (11%)
Latest update has broken the game can't do random wasteland quests - it now causes a crash and then your vault becomes inaccessible on reloading the game.
Steam review, 4 March 2026 · 1,544 hours played · 10 readers marked it helpfulThe game crashes, and I can't access the vault.
Steam review, 5 March 2026 · 35 hours played · 6 readers marked it helpful - Monetisation inside the game19 of 300 (6%)
to rub salt to the wound, a pop up to buy Lunchboxes (the games form of loot boxes) pops up.
Steam review, 5 March 2026 · 163 hours played · 5 readers marked it helpfulGonna need a refund for my battle pass.
Steam review, 5 March 2026 · 116 hours played · 3 readers marked it helpful - Lost progress or broken saves10 of 300 (3%)
Game also never made a backup of my save so its really just gone.
Steam review, 15 July 2026 · 3 hours played · 61 readers marked it helpfuldumped 5 hours of my precious time into a game that ultimately led to a corrupt save due to the recent update.
Steam review, 5 March 2026 · 15 hours played · 2 readers marked it helpful
A further 15 reviews call the game buggy or broken without saying how, which is why they are counted separately rather than assigned to a theme. Counted by keyword across review text, so a review discussing two problems is counted under both. Read the reviews yourself.
Did it run on your PC?
Tell other players how it ran on your machine. One tap, from your saved PC if you have one.
Where Fallout Shelter appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Fallout Shelter qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Games like Fallout Shelter
24 games overlap with Fallout Shelter on the tags Steam players applied to it, on genre, and on theme. The closest are Kingdom: Classic, Jurassic World Evolution and Kingdoms and Castles.
Fallout Shelter head to head
See Fallout Shelter compared side by side, on score, price, specs and more:
More Fallout Shelter comparisons: vs Feed and Grow: Fish, vs PixARK, vs Forager, vs Project Winter
Common questions about Fallout Shelter
What platforms is Fallout Shelter on?
Fallout Shelter is available on Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck. It first released in 2015.
Is Fallout Shelter free?
Yes. Fallout Shelter is free to download on Steam. It carries in-game purchases.
Do players recommend Fallout Shelter?
88% of 82,585 Steam reviews are positive, which Steam rates Very Positive. That is players rating it, not our review. We have not published a review of this game.
What is the Metacritic score for Fallout Shelter?
63 out of 100 for the PC version, as published on the game's own Steam store page. Steam can lag Metacritic by a few points.
Does Fallout Shelter work on Steam Deck?
Valve rates Fallout Shelter as verified on the Steam Deck, from its own testing. That means it works out of the box with no configuration.
How big is the Fallout Shelter download?
2 GB on PC, from the storage requirement on its Steam listing. Console versions differ.
Who made Fallout Shelter?
Fallout Shelter was developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.
Is Fallout Shelter worth it in 2026?
88% of 82,585 Steam reviews are positive (Very Positive), and it is free to play. That is the strongest signal we hold; "worth it" depends on the price you pay and what you want, so weigh the sentiment against the current price above.
What are the system requirements for Fallout Shelter?
At minimum, Fallout Shelter needs 2 GB RAM, a Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9550 @2.83GHZ, a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1Ghz, 2 GB of storage, from its Steam listing. That is what it takes to launch and be playable, not to run at high settings. Check it against your own PC on the can-I-run page.
How long does it take to beat Fallout Shelter?
about 17.9 hours for the main story, 53 hours with the main extras, 97.2 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.