However, a disagreement with the creator of GURPS, Steve Jackson, over the game's violent content required Black Isle Studios to develop the new SPECIAL system.

The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, of the in-game New England Commonwealth and features voiced protagonists.

The player's character (voiced by either Brian T. Delaney or Courtenay Taylor), dubbed as the Sole Survivor, takes shelter in Vault 111, emerging 210 years later, after being subjected to suspended animation.

Set in the post-apocalyptic Mojave Wasteland in the year 2281, the game follows the story of the Courier, a mysterious protagonist left for dead after being ambushed while delivering a valuable package.

Unlike previous Fallout entries, New Vegas introduces multiple factions vying for control over the region, with the New California Republic (NCR), Caesar’s Legion, and the enigmatic Mr. House serving as key power players.

Gameplay is built on the same engine as Fallout 3, featuring first- and third-person combat, open-world exploration, and a robust dialogue system that significantly impacts the game’s progression.

Over a decade after its release, New Vegas remains a benchmark for storytelling in open-world RPGs, often considered the pinnacle of the Fallout series due to its player agency and world-building.

Flavor text throughout the rulebook describe characters featured in Fallout 4 and suggest that events are set to occur the same way they are at the beginning of the videogame, such as the arrival of the Prydwen airship.

[65] The final design of the power armor in the original Fallout was created by artist Leonard Boyarsky from a helmet rendering made to showcase "something more detailed to show (on) the cover and in the cinematics" of the game.

[67] The power armor's recurring appearances in subsequent titles following the acquisition of the Fallout intellectual property by Bethesda Softworks represents a crucial visual motif used to establish continuity with earlier works in the franchise.

PCGamesN reported that some noteworthy fan-created mods introduced aesthetic changes to the game's power armor design to make it seem more imposing and added animations to reflect their weight and heft.

[65] In Fallout 4, power armor is notably more heavily integrated into gameplay, with suits becoming customizable, interactable objects in the game world that the player climbs into rather than typical clothing and requiring fusion cores to use.

[72] Their success on the battlefield ultimately prompts the Great War, a last-ditch nuclear exchange between America and China later in 2077 that annihilates most of modern civilization, save for irradiated ghouls and those sheltering in the Vault Network.

[a] As such, a bizarre socio-technological status quo emerges, in which advanced robots, nuclear-powered cars, directed-energy weapons, and other futuristic technologies are seen alongside 1950s-era computers and televisions.

As global situations worsened, the American government became increasingly jingoistic and authoritarian, going as far as having political dissidents and Chinese-American citizens arrested and sent off to re-education camps where they were abused and even experimented on.

While their lifespans are greatly extended, their bodies develop widespread necrosis or rot; many lose their hair, their voices take on a raspy tone, and otherwise have permanently deformed physical features.

If ghouls continue to be exposed to high radiation levels, their brains experience irreversible damage, which can cause them to become "feral" and attack almost anything on sight, having lost their minds.

As a result of their popularity, numerous mods were created for Fallout series games with the Deathclaw as a central theme, either to tame the creatures as a pet or use them in combat, concepts which were later added as an official feature.

The Enclave was a secret cabal of wealthy industrialists, members of the military, and influential politicians who operated in the shadows and held a great degree of control over the United States' government.

This enigmatic alliance of private interests eventually subverted and developed from the continuity of government protocol to ensure its survival as the real United States, laying claim to the North American mainland.

Fallout satirizes the 1950s' and 1960s' fantasies of the United States' "post-nuclear-war-survival",[77][78][79][80] thus draws from 1950s pulp magazine science fiction and superhero comic books, all rooted in Atomic Age optimism of a nuclear-powered future, though gone terribly awry by the time the events of the game take place.

[78] Computers use vacuum tubes instead of transistors (of which only a few exist), the architecture of ruined buildings feature Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and Googie designs, direct-energy weapons resemble those used by Flash Gordon, and what few vehicles remain in the world are all 1950s-styled.

[89] In January 2022, Amazon officially moved forward with the series, with Nolan directing the pilot episode and Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner joining as showrunners.

The bundle contains "Vault 141" outfits for four operator characters Soap, Price, Ghost, and Gaz, in addition to Vault-themed weapon skins and other items based on Fallout.

The bundle was released on June 20, 2024, in addition to a free in-game event where players can earn other Fallout-themed cosmetic items, including a Nuka-Cola Quantum weapon camouflage.

[118] Minor criticisms include the prevalence of unspoiled food after 200 years, the survival of wood-framed dwellings after a nuclear blast, and the ubiquity of Super Mutants at early levels in the game.

[118][119][120] In response, James Stephanie Sterling of Destructoid has called fan groups like No Mutants Allowed "selfish" and "arrogant"; stating that a new audience deserves a chance to play a Fallout game; and that if the series had stayed the way it was back in 1997, new titles would never have been made and brought to market.

[121] Luke Winkie of Kotaku tempers these sentiments, saying that it is a matter of ownership; and that in the case of Fallout 3, hardcore fans of the original series witnessed their favorite games become transformed into something else and that they are "not wrong" for having grievances.

[124][125] Though even taking the mods into account, Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku still criticized the writing of the game in her review, describing it as "thin", "You never have particularly long or nuanced conversations with the other characters.

The magazine, PC Gamer, rated the game a six out of ten, praising it for its evocative and beautiful setting, large world, and combat but also criticizing the game for its bugs, poor UI, and repetitiveness, "the world retains a lot of what I love about Bethesda's previous RPGs with finely crafted environments, enjoyable weapons and crafting, and surprising little scraps of story to uncover and investigate.