Interplay initially gave the game little attention, but eventually spent $3 million and employed up to thirty people to develop it.

Interplay considered Fallout the spiritual successor to its 1988 role-playing game Wasteland and drew artistic inspiration from 1950s literature and media emblematic of the Atomic Age as well as the films Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.

[2] The protagonist, known as the Vault Dweller,[b] has seven primary statistics that the player can set: strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck.

[16][21][8] Combat is turn based and uses an action-point system, the number of action points that are available depending on certain perks and the player's allocation in the agility statistic.

[26] On October 23, 2077, a worldwide nuclear war between the United States and China following a global conflict caused by resource shortages devastated the world and destroyed modern civilization.

[16] The Vault Dweller can explore major settlements including Junktown, which is mired in conflict between local sheriff Killian Darkwater (Richard Dean Anderson) and criminal Gizmo (Jim Cummings); the Hub, a bustling merchant city with job opportunities;[29] and Necropolis, a city founded by Ghouls, humans mutated by radiation, who are revealed to be the former inhabitants of Vault 12.

[27] The Vault Dweller's journey also brings them into contact with various factions, including the Brotherhood of Steel, a quasi-religious military order devoted to finding and restoring pre-war technology,[27][30] the Children of the Cathedral, an optimistic religious cult;[31] and the Super Mutants, an army of virtually immortal humanoids immune to radiation.

The Vault Dweller can be customized or based on one of three pre-generated characters: Albert Cole, a negotiator and charismatic leader with a legal background; Natalia Dubrovhsky, a talented acrobat and the intelligent and resourceful granddaughter of a Russian diplomat in the pre-War Soviet consulate in Los Angeles; and Max Stone, the largest person in the Vault who is known for his strength, stamina, and lack of intelligence.

[4][33] The four companions the player can recruit are: Ian, a mercenary guard from Shady Sands;[34] Tycho, a desert ranger;[4] Dogmeat, a tireless loyal dog;[35] and Katja, a member of an organization called the Followers of the Apocalypse.

[42] Information discovered throughout the wasteland reveals that humans are being captured and turned into Super Mutants by exposure to the Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.).

and made into a super mutant, who then returns to Vault 13 with the master’s army and massacres its inhabitants as witnessed on security footage.

[46][48][49] Cain considered the team "amazing" for their dedication,[50] while Urquhart described working under Interplay as "barely controlled chaos".

It entered more coordinated development after Cain convinced Fargo of its potential,[57][58] and Interplay announced it had acquired the GURPS license in 1994.

[60] The team considered making the game first-person and 3D, but discarded the idea because the models would not have held the desired amount of detail.

[49] Designed to be open-world and non-linear,[61] Fallout was balanced so that, even though side quests are optional, characters who do not improve their skills and experience through them would be too ill-equipped to finish.

[39][46][67] Taylor outlined the design goals in a vision statement,[68] which Cain called an inspiration for the development team and "a major reason why the game came together at all.

[39] The team drew inspiration for Fallout's retro-futuristic art style from 1950s literature and media related to the Atomic Age.

[75] 21 NPCs were voiced by various actors, including Anderson, Cummings, Soucie, Tony Shalhoub, Keith David, Brad Garrett, CCH Pounder, Tony Jay, Pamela Adlon, Richard Moll, David Warner, Clancy Brown, Kenneth Mars, and Ron Perlman, who also voiced the narrator.

The heads were digitized using a Faro Space Arm and VertiSketch, with LightWave 3D used for geometric corrections and the texture maps created in Adobe Photoshop.

[79] The development team became confident in their vision after the audio director reacted to the voice-switching concept, and every department believed the Master would be a great antagonist.

[80] An example is the final encounter with the Master, whose motives for establishing unity among the wasteland population and making it immune to radiation by turning them into mutants could be perceived as persuasive by the player.

[10] The Electric Playground said that they "can't think of another game that comes even close to Fallout's excellent character generation and skill system, great story, and classy delivery.

[16] Finding the combat unrealistic, Computer Gaming World said that the turn-based system "might bore or disappoint Diablo fans, but will be welcome to most hard-core RPGers.

[129][130][127] In 2000, CNET Gamecenter's Mark H. Walker wrote, "The RPG genre was clearly in a slump in the mid-'90s, but ... the renaissance began when Interplay's Fallout hit store shelves.

"[46] After leaving Interplay in 1998, Cain, Boyarsky, and Anderson formed Troika Games and created Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001).

[135] Years later, working for Obsidian Entertainment, Cain and Boyarsky created The Outer Worlds (2019), a role-playing video game influenced by Fallout.

[109][148][149][133] Retrospective critics have considered the game innovative and praised its setting, dark tone, gameplay mechanics, and character system.

[40][155][157] GameSpot singled out Jim Cummings's voice acting as the Master as "chilling" and considered him "one of the most memorable antagonists in computer-gaming history.

[163] Fallout has been inducted into the "Hall of Fame" (or similar award) of Computer Gaming World,[164] GameSpot,[165] GameSpy,[129] and IGN.

[4][51] Other recurring elements include the Super Mutants,[183] the Brotherhood of Steel,[184] the PIPBoy (known as the Pip-Boy in later games),[185] and Power Armor.