Fallout Shelter is an adorably demented dollhouse builder, and it's out now

What with all the corpses, cannibals, and culture wars, vaults rarely work out very well in Fallout 4 - but maybe yours will be different. Fallout Shelter will let you build your very own Vault-Tec approved habitat-for-the-remainder-of-humanity on iOS, and you can download it from the App Store tonight.

Fallout Shelter's side-on cutaway view will be familiar to XCOM base builders, though Bethesda cited influences as far back as Little Computer People in its design. It's basically like building and managing your own great big doll house for Vault Boys and Vault Girls (or for raiders and radscorpions if you're not being a very good Vault Overseer).

All your Vault Dwellers will have their own stats and names, and you can even kit them out with new gear from special lunch boxes. That's also where the free-to-play microtransactions come in - you can pay for a fresh infusion of random loot, but Bethesda said Fallout Shelter won't have any annoying F2P hooks like construction timers and energy meters.

Maybe naming all your Vault Children "Dogmeat" will make the wait for Fallout 4's release date slightly more bearable...

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

Latest in Fallout
Fallout overseer
Original Fallout creator says he "pushed" for a happy ending with "cake and balloons" instead of the RPG's downbeat finale
Fallout
Disco Elysium lead says original Fallout is an RPG "that's almost Biblical in its annihilation," making "other post-apocalyptic worldbuilding seem like an amusement park"
Fallout 4 mod Fallout London screenshot showing a ruinous post-apocalyptic Camden
As if Fallout: London wasn't already big enough, its devs now say the mod's "first DLC is getting closer" with "more surprises" to come
mister burke sat in a beige suit, black tie, white shirt, and black hat and shades
Bethesda fans raise $140k for prolific VA's medical bills as Bethesda describes him as "an incredibly talented and instrument part of our games"
Fallout: New Vegas mod Fallout: Nuevo Mexico
After 4 years, Fallout: New Vegas' massive New Mexico mod is canceled: "Continuing forward simply isn't sustainable"
MTG
30 years later, Fallout creator Tim Cain is searching for a legendary D&D player who cheesed an entire competitive dungeon with a lightning-fast Monk build
Latest in News
The Witcher 4 screenshot with Ciri using sword and sorcery to fight an ancient monster
The Witcher 4 devs explain how Ciri's fighting style will differ from Geralt's: "He's nimble, but he feels like a block...she's liquid"
Challenging The Manacle in Balatro, which limits hand size by -1 and playing two Jacks
From "I stopped working on the project entirely" to "we are so back," Balatro creator says the roguelike's development was always about passion and taking breaks was essential
InZOI screenshot from creation studio demo which depicts a shockingly realistic character model rendered in Unreal Engine 5
The director behind The Sims competitor InZOI spent 20 years making MMOs, but he ditched the massive RPGs after playing life sims with his son
Demon Slayer season 4 episode 2
True to the anime, Stardew Valley's hottest mod adds two romanceable Demon Slayer dudes who are both "rude and standoffish" at first
A group of Men wearing armour during the TV show, Vikings.
Vikings creator is heading back to his Norse roots with this new historical drama on Amazon
Balatro screenshot showing an assortment of joker cards
Balatro creator intentionally avoided roguelikes but did eventually play and "steal from" Slay the Spire anyway: "Holy s***. Now that is a game"