Gaming News

There Are A Bunch Of Great Fallout Games You Haven’t Even Played Yet

On Dec 30, 2025 4:36 pm, by NuclearCoffee

Fallout’s second season has gotten off to a great start. Lucy is kicking ass again as we head towards New Vegas, Mr House, and (presumably) the events of the best game in the series. Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or a newcomer to the hobby enticed by the show’s promise of radroach-killing fun, many players are looking around for a new game to sink their teeth into right now.

The situation looks a little barren. The most recent video game in the franchise, Fallout 76, is a mammoth MMO that seems impenetrable to an outsider. The last single-player entry is Fallout 4, a middling RPG that felt dated when it first released a decade ago and is pretty unanimously considered the worst in the series today. Bethesda boss Todd Howard hasn’t helped things by saying that the next Fallout game (Fallout 5, at a guess) will tie directly into the TV show. That’s great, but development probably hasn’t even started and, if The Elder Scrolls 6 is anything to go by, the show will be hitting its tenth season by the time it eventually releases.

Game development simply can’t keep up with the pace of TV production, so I can’t help but feel that any implementation of Lucy, Maximus, and Walton Goggins’ Ghoul will be outdated by the time we plug in our controllers. However, there’s an answer already available. There are a deluge of Fallout games available that you probably haven’t played, including one that released *checks notes* last week. You just need to broaden your horizons.

Fallout Factions

Yes, I’m talking about tabletop games. We’ve had some excellent official Fallout games grace our tables and boards over the past few years and my favourite is Fallout Factions. A skirmish game similar to Warhammer’s Kill Team, you control a small number of miniatures vying for supremacy in the post-apocalypse.

The rules from Games Workshop alum James Hewitt are excellent, with clever twists on SPECIAL stats and fun, engaging systems for utilising the best chems in the midst of battle. The best part is, you can even buy miniatures to represent characters of the TV show. They have proper rules and everything, so you can see for sure whether you’d be able to survive in the show’s setting and situations.

Fallout Power Play

The newest Fallout game to hit our shelves, Fallout Power Play is a competitive card game for 2-4 players. After getting my hands on the deck, I had great fun playing quick, chaotic matches that evoke the unpredictability of the post-apocalypse.

Playing as much against the environment as the other players, Power Play is a clever twist on the classic mechanics of the Fallout games that changes up the genre without losing any of that iconic setting. From unique cards specific to your chosen faction (Raiders, Enclave, Super Mutants, or the Brotherhood of Steel), to the Wasteland deck that can unleash a Deathclaw among the irradiated chickens, it’s got everything you could want from a Fallout game. Publisher Modiphius expects to ship pre-orders in January, which gives you plenty of time to get stuck in before the show’s second season finale.

Fallout Season 2 Had Better Not Screw Up New Vegas

If Lucy doesn’t join the Kings, what are we even doing?

Just Replay Fallout: New Vegas

Attacking an enemy with a golf club in Fallout New Vegas.

Instead of waiting for an Oblivion-style remaster which feels inevitable but might be years away (and provided Bethesda doesn’t opt for a Fallout 3 remaster instead), you could just play New Vegas again. Vanilla, modded, you name it. I know it’s on your hard drive, still installed from the last time you told yourself you’d side with The Legion for this evil run. You don’t need better graphics, New Vegas’ art direction already has all the sauce it needs.

Fallout The Roleplaying Game

While the original Fallout video game was essentially GURPS with all the trademarks filed off, there is now a bespoke tabletop roleplaying system specifically made to ape the digital experience. A TTRPG adaptation of a digital RPG adaptation of a TTRPG, if you will. While it sounds convoluted, the rules system is pretty good and allows you to tell your own stories within this evocative universe.

The options for role-playing are endless. Dungeons & Dragons can be adapted to basically any setting (I’m particularly enjoying Oddvoid’s gundam-inspired D&D Actual Play at the moment), crunchier customers can head back to where it all started with GURPS, and players wanting a pre-rendered Fallout experience can play Fallout The Roleplaying Game.

There really is something for everyone when it comes to Fallout. By expanding your gaming horizons to include tabletop and card games, there’s a whole host of Fallout fun at your fingertips. Or, you know, you can cryogenically freeze yourself for 210 years in Vault 111, emerging just ahead of the Fallout 5 release date and with 105 seasons of the TV show to binge. Lucy is played by an AI clone of Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten’s power armour doubles as a life support system, and Walton Goggins doesn’t need make-up to play the Ghoul any more. I know what I’d choose.