Fallout Shelter has been on mobile devices and PC for quite
a while now but it has finally, and I have to admit somewhat unexpectedly, come
to Xbox One so the five of us in the world without a smart phone can see what
the fuss is about. The game plays
surprisingly well with a controller on Xbox One, but is even better on your
Windows 10 PC since this version of Fallout Shelter is an Xbox Play Anywhere
title. The core game is the same as
ever, and still gets boring fairly quickly, but for Fallout fans that haven’t
already played it, Fallout Shelter is worth spending a few hours with on Xbox
One. See all of the details here in our
full review. Game Details
- Publisher: Bethesda
- Developer: Bethesda
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Strategy
- Pros: Fallout fanservice; simple and smart design; quests
- Cons: Boring and repetitive after a while
- MSRP: Free (In App Purchases)
Fallout Shelter is available to download and play for free,
but it also has some In App Purchases to buy resources with real money if you
want to speed things along. Unlike a
lot of free to play games, however, it isn’t constantly smacking you in the
face with intrusive “BUY ME” buttons and doesn’t have a lot of bottlenecks
designed to block your progression until you start spending money. You earn plenty of resources and consumable
items just by playing the game, or by simply being patient, and don’t really
feel tempted to start spending money.
It is nice that the option to spend money is there for folks that want
it, but you definitely don’t have to in order to have fun with Fallout Shelter.
The premise behind the game is that you are the Overseer of
a Vault Tec vault and can design it however you like. The game takes place as a 2D view into the vault so you can see all
of the rooms and vault dwellers inside and selecting a room or a specific
dweller give you more options. You have
to build power plants, water purification, and diner rooms to supply your vault
with water, food, and electricity, but you can also build other rooms to train
specific S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits of your dwellers, radio rooms, workshops, and
much more. You can also send dwellers
out into the wasteland to scavenge for supplies and explore. And, of course, your vault can be attacked
by raiders or catch on fire at any time so you always have to be prepared to
fight back. The idea is that you have
to find a balance between all of the essential resources while also expanding
the vault, equipping dwellers with stat-boosting outfits and weapons, attracting new dwellers (or letting your dwellers have kids), and
exploring the wasteland. It is a
deceptively simple setup that works incredibly well. For a while, at least.
Eventually, however, you’ll figure out how to balance
everything and make your vault run efficiently and at that point it gets pretty
boring and repetitive and tedious. I
think it is important to note that Fallout Shelter isn’t necessarily a game
that you’re going to play for long periods of time. It is a game you sort of check in on for a few minutes a few
times each day rather than sit down and play for hours at a time. There just isn’t enough stuff to do, and
since some tasks take hours to complete (unless you use premium consumable
items to speed them up), it just isn’t something you have to actively
play. Honestly, it is kind of weird
that it is even on the Xbox One at all because it really isn’t a typical
“console” game.
On that note, I have to say I’m overjoyed that this is an
Xbox Play Anywhere title because I have spent a lot more time playing it on my
Windows 10 PC than on my XONE. Not just
because it is more convenient and easier to jump in and out of on PC, but
because the Xbox One version has been a buggy and unstable mess of constant
crashes to the dashboard so far.
Playing on PC just feels better, anyway, as you can zoom in much closer
on specific rooms and see what your dwellers are doing and being able to simply
click on a room or dweller works a lot better than using a controller on Xbox
One. The Xbox One controls are fine,
just a lot slower since you have to scroll though all of the rooms and
dwellers. Hopefully the stability
issues get fixed.
One other slight complaint I have with Fallout Shelter is
that it doesn’t quite go far enough into the Fallout universe for my
tastes. I want it to be just dripping
with Fallout references and fanservice, but it is really just a trickle of
items and an occasional character you may or may not remember. You could slap any license on the core
gameplay of vault management and not change much because it just doesn’t really
scream “Fallout” at you.
Thankfully, the game does get a little more into the nitty
gritty of the Fallout universe once you build an Overseer’s Office and can
start doing quests. These quests let
you send dwellers out on specific missions with actual stories that take place
in memorable Fallout locations.
Scrounging for items, fighting iconic Fallout enemies, talking to other
survivors, and exploring recognizable slices of Americana is what Fallout has
always been about, and doing quests in Fallout Shelter actually delivers on
that somewhat. Of course, the quests
take many realtime hours to do since your dwellers have to slowly walk to and
from the locations, but they’re totally worth it and the best part of the whole
experience.
As far as presentation goes, Fallout Shelter looks good and
scales incredibly well. Being able to
zoom all the way out to see your entire vault all at once and then zooming in a
specific room so you can see what your dwellers are doing is smooth and very
cool. The art style is appealing and
the little Vault Boy-style character models for everything is very nice. The sound effects are lifted directly from
the other Fallout games, but the music is mostly the subdued and atmospheric
tracks and not the old timey licensed tunes Fallout has become known for.
Fallout Shelter is very smartly designed and
surprisingly polished and it is nice to see on Xbox One. It may not keep you occupied for very long,
but it’s hard to complain too much about a free game like this and it does
deliver some satisfying Fallout fanservice if you’re willing to dig into the
quest system. As long as you don’t go
in with the wrong expectations (I.E. expecting to play it a ton for long
periods), Fallout Shelter is a fun little distraction for Fallout fans.
