Fallout Shelter Review

"The Vault Life"

Campaign

Fallout Shelter was one of the hit mobile games of last year collecting a huge audience and also providing hours of entertainment for myself while I was out on the go. First announced at E3 2015 the game has received a number of large updates and improvements that generally just build on the core experience. With that we're left with a much better experience as it moves over to PC, yet the title is mostly just a port. The first thing to note would be that you need the Bethesda launcher to play which was disappointing and being so mobile focused it's not quite that great on PC.

Not to be too negative off the bat as this is a fantastic title, it's just that at least during the start of your vault journey meant to be played in short sessions. This is due to waiting for your core resources to be collected or for more vault dwellers to join and compared to my hundred dweller mobile vault this new one was painfully slow on PC. I basically just had it running in the background while I worked today only to check on the odd fire or for when things were finished and need clicking to collect. The general concept for the game in case you don't know is to construct a vault and then grow over time with new members.

Gameplay

The game does look quite great yet sadly doesn't include any resolution settings within and you just drag the screen as it carries a responsive design. While this might be bad for other titles it does look solid at 4K resolution even with zoom-up to each rooms though some jagged lines are present. I also had some issues with clicking characters as it would detect behind them or around them which could be frustrating. That said the goal is to be build rooms in order to fill all the needs of your vault. As you gain more vault dwellers your access to rooms grow and the abilities of which you train them also does.

Each "SPECIAL" ability has a room and training room where you send dwellers that are exception or needing to become so. This makes them the most effective at working in the locations and in turn provides better resource output. You can also mate dwellers in family rooms; run side fun rooms for bonuses, collect items and send people out into the wasteland for exploration. It's a very complex title that while it starts out boring quickly grows into a wild experience of running a vault.

The Conclusion

Fallout Shelter already has built itself into a full experience on mobile and that just gets carried over to the PC side of things. While you can tell my vault on PC wasn't doing so well it's because I got distracted and didn't click for awhile whereas my mobile Shelter is thriving. Aside from regular play the game does carry many microtransactions like with the mobile version including lunchboxes and Nuka Cola. The boxes give you bonus items quickly whereas the Nuka Cola let you safely rush things in the game.

Other ways to get items include completing tasks as you always have three available which is an important part of collecting items. Items include things such as clothing; weapons junk and health supplies. You'll need these to protect the vault or even arm folks being sent out. There's a ton to the game and I hope the review covered all the core features well. It's basically the exact same experience as on mobile that looks a bit better. That's great as people love the game, just be ready for Fallout Shelter to not be something you can just sit and play for an extended period of time.

Fallout Shelter Review on PC

Rating Overall: 8.5