Every Fallout game is meaningfully different from the last, and the series includes some of the best games you’ll ever play. It’s an easy recommendation to anyone with a passing interest in computer roleplay, and even easier now that you can get every game in the series (including the black sheep, Tactics) along with a boatload of DLC for $77. That’s almost as cheap as a crate full of puppets!
That’s thanks to a live Steam sale, which you can peruse at your leisure here if you’re itching to figure out what all those Magic the Gathering cards are about.
If you’re not sure which to buy and would rather start with just one, here’s the main series rundown. The original two Fallout games are top-down, turn-based masterworks that, while pretty old, are landmark CRPGs and furnished the series with its iconic juxtaposition of atomic age aesthetics, grisly hyperviolence, and sardonic humor. The first Fallout game is my personal favorite, and don’t let its vintage fool you—as 90s RPGs go, it’s approachable.
Fallout 3 and the Obsidian-developed New Vegas come after the series was bought from the original publisher, Interplay, by Bethesda. These 3D open-world RPGs are both widely celebrated for their storytelling and real-time shootouts (though the V.A.T.S. auto-aiming system lets you put your fate back in the hands of dice, if you’d like). You can’t go wrong with either, and should probably play both if one strikes your fancy. New Vegas is perhaps more of a fixer-upper, but its character writing is acclaimed and its setting is a prominent inspiration for the TV show’s new season.
Fallout 4 is more recent and streamlined than 3 and Vegas, and it builds out Bethesda’s familiar open-world formula with base-building, more detailed crafting, and punchier combat. The RPG aspect takes a back seat, but there is a robot who will call you by the name Mr. Fucker if you like. And with guns like these, you may not even care that the dialog trees have been trimmed.
Then there’s Fallout 76, a survival-craft game that recovered from a rough launch to become one of the better games in its genre. It plays very similarly to Fallout 4, features one of the best and most beautiful open worlds in the series, is your only real multiplayer option, and has lots of nods to the TV show (though they aren’t all free).
Whatever you decide, it’s hard to go wrong; Fallout has become the phenomenon that it is for a reason. The Steam sale is live through Feb. 6.