Even the first Fallout game is receiving an influx of players on Steam

As expected following the launch of the highly-anticipated Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime, there has been an uptick of people playing the Fallout games. However, people aren’t just going for the newest game in the series. Fallout 76. Fallout 4, which released in 2015, and even the very first Fallout have seen relatively huge jumps in player count on Steam.

Fallout 1, in particular, peaked at 2,352 players on Steam over the weekend. That’s a pittance compared to the top games on Steam, but that is a whopping 553.3% jump in concurrent players over the past month, according to SteamDB. Fallout 3 - Game of the Year Edition is seeing a similar jump, with around 6,700 concurrent players hopping in over the weekend (a 415.4% increase over the past 30 days). Steam Charts also confirms the success of both, adding that even the base Fallout 3 is seeing a big jump. Then there’s Fallout: New Vegas, which was developed by Obsidian Entertainment rather than Bethesda. While I wouldn’t recommend playing it unless you download a ton of mods, people are still checking it out, with a peak of over 19,000 players in the days following the show’s release.

Fallout 76, meanwhile, reached its all-time peak on Steam over the weekend, with over 39,000 concurrent players. It’s unclear what the numbers look like on other platforms, but Bethesda acknowledged on X that there have been a lot of new players to the game.

The influx of players to the online multiplayer role-playing game isn’t too surprising when you consider that Bethesda made Fallout 76 free to play across platforms, from April 11-18. It was also free for Amazon Prime subscribers this month. And if you wanted to live out your Vault 33 fantasy in-game, there were some TV show cosmetics to boot.

However, the biggest success among the franchise goes to Fallout 4, which peaked at over 83.000 players over the weekend and is maintaining a steady concurrent player count, with around 61,000 at the time of this writing. That makes it the 20th most played game on the platform right now.

Bethesda announced last week that it would finally be receiving its next-gen update later this month, with a bunch of new features for PC players, so that might explain the recent popularity. It’s also the newest mainline Fallout game, so is arguably the easiest for new players if they want a more vanilla Fallout experience.

It’s more evidence that video game series adaptations can lead to increased sales for the original games. We saw this with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which hit a new record for concurrent players on Steam after the Netflix show debuted. The Last of Us franchise also saw a huge uptick in sales following the HBO adaptation.

If you’re not on the bandwagon just yet, Bethesda is continuing to push new players into its games, with sales across platforms. On Steam, you can get some big discounts, although if you have the money, the Fallout Franchise Bundle for 77% off — so for just $51.56 (basically the cost of one main Fallout game at launch). Fallout 76, specifically, is also on sale for up to 80% off for the standard edition and 67% off for the deluxe edition. Basically, if you wanted to check out any Fallout game, you have some options.

Update (April 24): As the buzz from the Fallout TV show continues, Bethesda announced on X that Fallout 76 has welcomed over one million players in one day, and all Fallout games together saw almost five million players in a single day.

Over a week later, the effects of the Prime Video series’ launch haven’t tailed off — far from it. On Steam, Fallout 4 sits firmly within the top 10 most played, peaking at over 164,000 concurrent players on Sunday, April 21.

Fallout 76, meanwhile, hit an all-time peak of 73,368 concurrent players on the same day — which is more than double the peak it reached upon its Steam release in April 2020. This can’t all be explained away by Bethesda’s free promotions, either, since the game’s free-to-play offer has concluded and, while the game remains free to Prime Gaming members, that service offers Windows Store codes, not Steam. Not bad for a game that was as good as written off at launch.

Fallout Franchise Bundle

• $52
• $225
• 78% off

Prices taken at time of publishing.

• $52 at Steam