Bethesda Announces Fallout Shelter

Bethesda surprised audiences at their E3 showcase with Fallout Shelter, a new free-to-play mobile game launching tonight.

Drawing inspiration from several classics, Fallout Shelter puts players in charge of their own vault and vault dwellers. As an Overseer, it’s up to players to keep their residents happy, well fed and safe from all the usual dangers of a post-apocalyptic world, ranging from raiders, to fires, to the local wildlife. Players are expected to train up their vault dwellers too, and send them out into the wide world to scavenge supplies.

Rooms and buildings appear instantly in Fallout Shelter--no build times!

Of course, just because the world is ending doesn’t mean life can’t go on--players’ vault dwellers can get their romance on and create the next generation of powersuit-wearing, bottlecap-collecting survivors.

It’s a model that hearkens back to any number of city management games, but Bethesda’s hoping it will keep fans primed for the upcoming release of Fallout 4 later this year.

And best of all? Fallout Shelter will be free on iOS tonight--without any paywalls. Anyone interested in throwing their money at Bethesda though can buy more lunchboxes--which give out supplies, bottlecaps and other goodies--although it’s “by no means necessary” to enjoy the game.

Fallout Shelter launches tonight for iOS phones and tablets.