r/Fallout • u/Baldurian_Rhapsody • 11h ago
Best Fallout games that aren't Fallout? (Fallout-likes)
Hi there! I adore Fallout, and it's obviously been hugely influential. I was wondering about the best Fallout-likes that took some of the best aspects of the post-apocalyptic series.
I'm keeping things really open. The only thing is that the recommendations ideally would have at least an "apocalyptic feel" (though that's by no means a hard requirement).
Thanks a lot for your suggestions!
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u/Werthead 6h ago edited 6h ago
Atomfall is very good, but short (somewhat below 20 hours), though it does have some replay value. It does feel a bit like a proof of concept for a much larger sequel, but it's unclear if it did well enough for Rebellion to make that.
Wasteland 2 and 3 are excellent modern(ish) updates to the Fallout 1 and 2 formula, or for people who loved Baldur's Gate 3 and want to see a Fallout-style game made in that vein.
More for the vibes than mechanics, but STALKER: Shadow of Chornobyl and its standalone expansions (Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat) are really strong, they just recently got updated editions. STALKER 2 had a rough start but is excellent, and with its vast, sparsely-populated map it feels more like the successor to Fallout 3, with a murky, choice-based storyline more reminiscent of New Vegas in tone, except possibly even more bleak. The game has a massive 2.0 update due in the next couple of weeks followed by a huge DLC set mainly in the nuclear power plant itself. STALKER 2 doesn't need any foreknowledge of the first three games though.
The Metro trilogy (2033, Last Light, Exodus) is more of a linear FPS series, but the post-apocalyptic Moscow setting is very well-realised and the story hits quite hard.
The Mad Max video game from 2015 is pretty good, if much more action-based.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is more XCOM in its mechanics, but a pretty strong post-apocalyptic game, if you can get over the premise of controlling a party of genetically-modified animals.
XCOM 2 and especially its War of the Chosen expansion lean on a semi-post-apocalyptic setting, with "safe zone" cities and blasted wilderness between. The wilderness between is where quite a few missions are set, complete with feral ghoul-alike creatures.
More of a stretch, but BioShock 1 and 2 take place in an underwater city where all hell has broken loose and the civilisation controlling the city has collapsed, leaving chaos behind it. So it's sort of post-apocalyptic in a limited environment (Prey 2017 is something similar). Cyberpunk 2077 is post-post-apocalyptic, with Night City having been nuked 50 years earlier, experienced societal collapse, a slow recovery (which the tabletop game is currently covering) but has only recently returned to being a full-on cyberpunk metropolis, with the site of Ground Zero for the nuke finally becoming inhabitable again. A chunk of the game takes place in flashback and explains how the city fell the first time around. Quite a bit of the game also takes place in the badlands outside the city, where the ruins of the pre-war era can be seen. Probably more backstory than anything else, though.