October 29, 2026

Every Mainline Fallout, Ranked Worst to Best

Every mainline Fallout, ranked by how it plays today, not at launch.

The 1997 original still writes brilliantly, but its interface fights you every step. Fallout 2 came a year later, bigger and funnier, with the same stubborn controls.

Fallout 76 launched rough in 2018, and years of updates made it worth visiting. Fallout 3 moved the series to Washington in 2008, though its shooting feels stiff.

Fallout 4 brought the series' best gunplay in 2015, and it holds up. Obsidian built New Vegas in 2010, and its choices still outclass everything else here.

Our pick: Your faction choices in the Mojave reshape the ending, and no later Fallout matches that. Bugs aside, it's $9.99 for the best writing Bethesda ever published.

The full ranking

1. 6Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
   1997 · PC
2. 5Fallout 2
   1998 · PC
3. 4Fallout 76
   2018 · PC, PS4, Xbox One
4. 3Fallout 3
   2008 · PC, PS3, Xbox 360
5. 2Fallout 4
   2015 · PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
6. 1Fallout: New Vegas
   2010 · PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Counted down from number 6 to number one.

Games in this story

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Fallout: New Vegas

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Fallout 4

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Fallout 3

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Fallout 76

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Fallout 2

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Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game

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PS5

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Xbox Series X

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