3 Games That Feel Like Fallout Without Being Fallout

Fallout is one series that has endured countless changes throughout the years and is still a fan favorite. What started as an isometric RPG with a rich, choice-based campaign has morphed into a third-person shooter with a lighter focus on player choice, but a compelling story nonetheless. One of the big reasons Fallout has remained so popular is that the post-apocalyptic setting is ripe for storytelling, which means that plenty of other games have tried to replicate Fallout’s success. Those other games can be hit or miss, but a few of them stand out as some of the best in the genre.

Here are three games to play if you love Fallout.

3) Wasteland 3

If you’re a fan of the original Fallout games, the Wasteland series is a must-play. The first game actually predates Fallout and was also developed by Interplay Productions, but when Fallout creator Brian Fargo split from Interplay in the early 2000s, he founded a new studio called inXile.

For several years, inXile worked on several different properties, but Fargo and his team finally released the sequel to Wasteland in 2014 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Wasteland 3 launched six years later and was an instant hit.

It’s nothing like the Bethesda version of Fallout, but Wasteland 3 lets players jump into deep, turn-based combat with an isometric perspective. Plus, with the squad-based gameplay, you can easily jump into a co-op session with a buddy, making exploration of the post-apocalypse a little easier to handle.

2) Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Mutant Year Zero is another isometric game that feels similar to classic Fallout games. However, the developers at The Bearded Ladies take a ton of inspiration from the squad-based combat in modern X-COM.

The combat is satisfyingly crunchy, with plenty to chew on. Every success and failure feels earned, and finishing a combat encounter without alerting a single enemy is a rush. On the story front, Mutant Year Zero isn’t breaking any new ground, though its characters are fun in a goofy way.

Unfortunately, it does lack the player choice that Fallout is so famous for. Instead, it focuses more on exploration and combat. If you’re looking for a combat-heavy game that borrows Fallout’s vibe, Mutant Year Zero is worth checking out. And while it’s not Fallout-related, the team at Bearded Ladies worked on Dune: Awakening, another solid survival RPG.

1) Atomfall

Atomfall isn’t a perfect game. The developers at Rebellion Developments were ambitious in their action survival game set during the post-apocalypse in England, but didn’t quite live up to expectations.

Still, it’s a medium-sized world filled with intrigue. Atomfall does an excellent job of drawing you into its world, providing you with plenty of options to solve the mysteries of this world. You slowly realize there isn’t much depth here, but you’ll still want to see it through to the end.

Regardless, this is as close as we’ve gotten to Fallout in the UK (at least without mods). For that, it’s worth checking out. Doubly so if you’re still signed up for Xbox Games Pass, where you can jump in at no extra cost. If nothing else, it’s worth seeing some of the wild ways you can solve England’s problems.

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