Fallout (franchise)

Fallout is an American media franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games created by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, at Interplay Entertainment. The series, set in the first half of the 3rd millennium, follows the descendants of survivors of a mutually destructive nuclear exchange between the United States and China that marked the culmination of a series of conflicts over resources which began in the middle of the 21st century. The games share an atompunk retrofuturistic setting and artwork influenced by the post-war culture of the 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. Fallout is regarded as a spiritual successor to Wasteland, a 1988 game also developed by Interplay.

The series' first title, Fallout, was developed by Black Isle Studios and released in 1997, and its sequel, Fallout 2, the following year. With the tactical role-playing game Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, development was handed to Micro Forté and 14 Degrees East. In 2004, Interplay closed Black Isle Studios, and continued to produce Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, an action game with role-playing elements for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, without Black Isle Studios. Fallout 3, the third entry in the main series, was released in 2008 by Bethesda Softworks, and was followed by Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment released on October 19, 2010. Fallout 4 was released in 2015, and Fallout 76 released on November 14, 2018.

Bethesda Softworks owned the rights to the Fallout intellectual property before it was acquired by Bethesda Zenimax Media, which is now the current owner.