Fallout's burst of popularity following the TV show is "beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my 30 years of doing this," says Todd Howard
May. 31, 2024The active player base has risen by 600%
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Todd Howard reveals how the recentFallout TV show’s booming success has had a massive impact on Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPGs.
In an interview withVarietydiscussing the Amazon Prime series, Howard explains that while the Fallout franchise has “kind of been sneaky popular for a while,” it hadn’t reached “this level” of activity before the TV show’s monumental premiere in April. Less than two months have passed since then but the number of active daily players across all Fallout games has more than quadrupled to five million: “Depending on the ‘Fallout’ game, you’re looking at a 4-6x increase in daily players,” Howard explains.
Seeing howyears after its RPGs' releases, Bethesda’s Fallout series is once again smashing US sales charts, this new-found player base makes sense. Calling the situation “beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my 30 years of doing this,” Howard continues describing how the show has impacted Bethesda. “Having an event that brings that many people into games that you have and who have never played your games before, that’s a big thing. New players who have never played a game or never played one of our games. It’s a really, really unique moment.”
The TV show is the second most-watched Prime Video title ever, having pulled a whopping 65 million viewers within its first few weeks on the platform. Its domino effect on the Fallout franchise’s popularity can be seen across the board, from the classic CRPG duo that started it all to the newer MMO,Fallout 76. The upcomingFallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L Anthology, a bundle containing all of the RPG series' games, has also seen sales balloon. With a confirmed second season of the show underway and Howard saying that there are “still stories to tell there,” we may just see these numbers grow even more.
Love Fallout? Check out what Howard said regardingBethesda’s “plans for future games” in the sci-fi RPG series.
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After spending years with her head in various fantastical realms' clouds, Anna studied English Literature and then Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh, going on to specialize in narrative design and video game journalism as a writer. She has written for various publications since her postgraduate studies, including Dexerto, Fanbyte, GameSpot, IGN, PCGamesN, and more. When she’s not frantically trying to form words into coherent sentences, she’s probably daydreaming about becoming a fairy druid and befriending every animal or she’s spending a thousand (more) hours traversing the Underdark in Baldur’s Gate 3. If you spot her away from her PC, you’ll always find Anna with a fantasy book, a handheld video game console of some sort, and a Tamagotchi or two on hand.
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