Fallout Shelter launched hours after Bethesda's Todd Howard took the stage at E3 2015. It was a bit of shock to see Bethesda launch it's first mobile game but they nailed it as it was one of the most popular mobile games of that year. Since it's launch it's received some updates but it's most recent 1.6 update may be the biggest to date. I've been playing the new version for the last few days and if you've been away from Fallout Shelter since its launch last year, you need to come back to the vault!
The PC Port Is Beautiful
To be honest I expected the PC port to be a bad. The game was designed for mobile and as with some games not designed with the PC in mind, they don't always play well. That said Fallout Shelter on PC is great and the visuals look incredible on the big screen. If you have a 1080p or 4K display Fallout Shelter will look good as it seems the graphics were made with the ability to scale them. The tap controls translate well to mouse clicks and I only found a couple cases where I would have preferred a keyboard press. The ability to resize the Window to be placed anywhere on the screen is great for the times where you want the game open but you want to surf the web or play something else. Fallout Shelter is a great game to run in the background on your PC and it's default Windowed mode helps this along.
The only downside to running Fallout Shelter on PC is that it requires the Bethesda.net launcher. It seems that every company now needs their own digital game service to compete with Steam. I may write a post about this in the future as, at this point, I have no idea how many different game services we are going to get in the next five years? Needless to say the game runs well on PC and I had zero issues with the install process. I hope Bethesda brings Fallout Shelter to Steam but for now it's a Besthesda.net exclusive which gives people a reason to sign up for the service.
Quests Give Fallout Shelter Purpose
Fallout Shelter 1.0 was a great game but after a week or so I didn't know what the end game was. Send your Vault dwellers out to collect more loot so you can build a bigger vault? Sure and that premise hooked me longer than most mobile games but with the addition of Quests, Fallout Shelter 1.6 feels like a proper Fallout game. When you have 18 Vault Dwellers you unlock the ability to build an Overseers Office which brings you the ability to run Quests. Quests let you send your Vault Dwellers areas to explore in a manner very similar to how you would in a proper Fallout game. For instance I went out on a daily quest today to do a "junk run." I sent my two highest level Dwellers and they went through a factory room by room clearing out Radroaches, Bandits and Ghouls until we grabbed each piece of loot. Along the way I found a bunch of caps and a really great gun I gave to one of the Dwellers for the return journey. The Quests are much more interactive than simply sending your Dwellers out to automatically explore and this addition makes Fallout Shelter feel like a bigger game.
Bethesda also added a new feature to sending your Dwellers out to explore in that occasionally you can allow them to ability to explore a random location. This location is then loaded just like a Quest filled with fights and loot to obtain.
Random Encounters, Junk & Pets
A couple of times while I was playing the game I noticed a mysterious stranger appear in my vault and if you select him you get some caps. So far i've just seen the Mysterious Stranger but if you see some other random happenstance let me know what you found.
Another awesome new feature is that when you kill a Bandit, Radroach or other wasteland baddie you can now loot the corpse for caps, junk, weapons or armor. Junk is also a new addition that if you collect enough, allows you the ability to craft things. I haven't built the crafting room yet, but I am collecting enough junk and plans that when I do, i'll be ready.
Bethesda also added pets to the game. You can find pets in kennels in the wasteland or by opening lunchboxes. Each pet comes with some kind of bonus ability like 25% to Junk find or %35 to caps find. You can assign them to Vault Dwellers you send out and as with weapons and armor you can reassign them as you see fit.
If you enjoyed Fallout Shelter and always wanted a bit more or if you haven't tried it at all I heartily recommend picking it up on your phone or PC. The game is free to play so you can play the game without spending anything or you can if you want a bit more. Curious what you all think of the new update so drop your experiences in the comments!
As a bonus, here is a screengrab of one of my Vault Dwellers that was out exploring and found a random Red Rocket location. It was just one room but after I killed the bandits was able to loot the place for some caps and a really great weapon.
http://i.imgur.com/kaV1cXz.jpg
The PC Port Is Beautiful
To be honest I expected the PC port to be a bad. The game was designed for mobile and as with some games not designed with the PC in mind, they don't always play well. That said Fallout Shelter on PC is great and the visuals look incredible on the big screen. If you have a 1080p or 4K display Fallout Shelter will look good as it seems the graphics were made with the ability to scale them. The tap controls translate well to mouse clicks and I only found a couple cases where I would have preferred a keyboard press. The ability to resize the Window to be placed anywhere on the screen is great for the times where you want the game open but you want to surf the web or play something else. Fallout Shelter is a great game to run in the background on your PC and it's default Windowed mode helps this along.
The only downside to running Fallout Shelter on PC is that it requires the Bethesda.net launcher. It seems that every company now needs their own digital game service to compete with Steam. I may write a post about this in the future as, at this point, I have no idea how many different game services we are going to get in the next five years? Needless to say the game runs well on PC and I had zero issues with the install process. I hope Bethesda brings Fallout Shelter to Steam but for now it's a Besthesda.net exclusive which gives people a reason to sign up for the service.
Quests Give Fallout Shelter Purpose
Fallout Shelter 1.0 was a great game but after a week or so I didn't know what the end game was. Send your Vault dwellers out to collect more loot so you can build a bigger vault? Sure and that premise hooked me longer than most mobile games but with the addition of Quests, Fallout Shelter 1.6 feels like a proper Fallout game. When you have 18 Vault Dwellers you unlock the ability to build an Overseers Office which brings you the ability to run Quests. Quests let you send your Vault Dwellers areas to explore in a manner very similar to how you would in a proper Fallout game. For instance I went out on a daily quest today to do a "junk run." I sent my two highest level Dwellers and they went through a factory room by room clearing out Radroaches, Bandits and Ghouls until we grabbed each piece of loot. Along the way I found a bunch of caps and a really great gun I gave to one of the Dwellers for the return journey. The Quests are much more interactive than simply sending your Dwellers out to automatically explore and this addition makes Fallout Shelter feel like a bigger game.
Bethesda also added a new feature to sending your Dwellers out to explore in that occasionally you can allow them to ability to explore a random location. This location is then loaded just like a Quest filled with fights and loot to obtain.
Random Encounters, Junk & Pets
A couple of times while I was playing the game I noticed a mysterious stranger appear in my vault and if you select him you get some caps. So far i've just seen the Mysterious Stranger but if you see some other random happenstance let me know what you found.
Another awesome new feature is that when you kill a Bandit, Radroach or other wasteland baddie you can now loot the corpse for caps, junk, weapons or armor. Junk is also a new addition that if you collect enough, allows you the ability to craft things. I haven't built the crafting room yet, but I am collecting enough junk and plans that when I do, i'll be ready.
Bethesda also added pets to the game. You can find pets in kennels in the wasteland or by opening lunchboxes. Each pet comes with some kind of bonus ability like 25% to Junk find or %35 to caps find. You can assign them to Vault Dwellers you send out and as with weapons and armor you can reassign them as you see fit.
If you enjoyed Fallout Shelter and always wanted a bit more or if you haven't tried it at all I heartily recommend picking it up on your phone or PC. The game is free to play so you can play the game without spending anything or you can if you want a bit more. Curious what you all think of the new update so drop your experiences in the comments!
As a bonus, here is a screengrab of one of my Vault Dwellers that was out exploring and found a random Red Rocket location. It was just one room but after I killed the bandits was able to loot the place for some caps and a really great weapon.
http://i.imgur.com/kaV1cXz.jpg
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Initial reaction: Free?! Wow well I guess there's no real need to question whether or not I should get into it. Honestly, I haven't been interested, but we'll see how that changes after I check it out. Part of that lack of interest stems from the fact that I don't have a smartphone. But, since it's now on PC and free, I suppose I can give it a look.
Thanks for letting us know it was available and basically how to get it. I expected it on Steam. I don't really mind having to install a Bethesda launcher for it because I really like Bethesda. I wonder what else they could possibly have on there that isn't on Steam.
So, it's a free game, but you can pay for it if you want more out of it? From what I've seen, it seems to be very popular and was also very successful as a mobile app, so again it seems as there's little reason to question whether or not it's a good game. I'll check it out and look forward to seeing what others have to say about it, too.
Oh and if you check out this site, you can find the link to download the launcher at the bottom: https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/fallout-shelter-quests-and-pc-version-announced/2016/06/12/143
Sorry, I edited my comment before I saw your reply (which meant I deleted my comment to add the link I found and reposted).
Can you still get that stuff without paying?
Yeah, you can buy lunch boxes which give you random items, dwellers and pets. Nuka Cola bottles which make some stuff go faster and a starter pack that combines some stuff.
None of that is needed to play the game, but there if people want.
I think most of it, if not all of it but it's all random so it may or may not happen in your particular game.
Ok, I'm downloading the game. It seems the only other part of the launcher includes the Creation Kit for Fallout 4, which lets you create mods for that game. I don't see a friends list either, so right now it seems like a simple game launcher. I imagine they'll expand upon it later. Maybe the game will be available on Steam eventually.
Yeah I downloaded this on launch day, and totally meant to come post about it but I think I got distracted playing it :D
They've really added a ton of content to this game since the initial iOS launch, which is the last time I played it. As for scaling, it was already made to scale-- it played equally well on iPhone and iPad-- and it looks like everything is vector graphics so it's easy to just make it scale infinitely.
I am really bummed to have yet another launcher, especially for something so small. But a free game is a great way to get people using your launcher, so this is a good time for them to push it. I really hope they don't stop releasing stuff through Steam. I imagine at worst it'll be like uPlay where you can launch the uPlay instance through Steam. But still, it just seems so unnecessary.
OK So I counted-- I have...
Steam, obviously.
Origin, which is actually better than people give it credit for.
GOG Galaxy, which is entirely optional but nice to keep your games up to date.
Battle.net, for all my Blizzard needs.
Up to this point I'm fine with it honestly. But then there are more...
Uplay, which I don't think many people just use by itself. But in order to play most Ubisoft games available on Steam, they launch into a smaller version of Uplay. BUT you still have to have an account with them and you still have to have the full Uplay installed.
Epic Launcher, the only way to play the new Unreal Tournament and Shadow Complex Remastered. It also gives you access to the Unreal Engine if you're a developer.
And now, Bethesda.net launcher. If you've used mods through Fallout 4's menus (as in, not downloading them and installing them yourself) you already have an account, but this is yet another launcher to sit on your system and yet another attack vector for someone to steal your information if you don't want that account.
I have an account for Desura but haven't used it in ages, not since Humble stopped providing Desura keys. I never played a game there anyway, I just redeemed them there just in case.
So yeah, it's getting kinda ridiculous.
Another launcher?! Ugh. I was interested, until you mentioned that. I'm also of the "this is getting ridiculous" camp. I've got all of the ones you listed, Travis, plus a couple of indie game portals (one for Itch.io, and another that I can't remember the name of, and am too lazy to boot my PC to check).
I get it. Everyone wants to control their content and revenue stream. That's more than fair. I just wish there was a better way.
Game Jolt. That's the other one.
Don't let the launcher keep you from it. It's a fun game, and way better on PC for my tastes.
> It's a fun game, and way better on PC for my tastes.
I've been playing it on mobile to experience the new content, mostly because I have 24/7 access to my phone. If you aren't attached to a PC much, check it on mobile!
That said, the PC port is quite good too and worth a look if you can spare a minute.
So far, I like it. I haven't spent a whole lot of time playing it, but I think I'm enjoying it. Right now I'm waiting for one of my dwellers to give birth. I have what I think is a Legendary dweller, Harkness. That's all on my second vault. I started out with a different one and had a lot more going on. Eventually, I realized that you can merge rooms, so I decided to build a new vault and instead build using that game mechanic. So I have merged water rooms together on one level while my merged food rooms are on another. I have two power rooms merged together, but the third didn't merge because I upgraded the first two. So, hopefully when I upgrade the third room it will then merge.
It's kind of a slow, mostly relaxing game. It might be cool if you had some control of how fast time passes. I had an objective to send a dweller out, but it took me a while before I learned how to check on her (without and Overseer's office). When I did figure it out (the vault icon), she was dead, but luckily I got to revive her and now I'm waiting on her to get back to the vault. It kind of seems like time passes even when I have saved and closed the game. Often I find that when I return I have resources to collect.