Bethesda's free-to-play mobile game Fallout Shelter landed on PC last year, however required you access its Bethesda launcher to play. That changes today, as Fallout Shelter is now free-to-download for Windows 10 as a 'Play Anywhere' game in conjunction with Xbox One consoles.
Available from the Windows Store, keen vault builders can now switch seamlessly between their PCs and Xbox consoles, should they desire, sharing saves, progress and achievements as they go. The Windows 10 iteration doesn't appear to bring anything new to the post-apocalyptic table above and beyond last summer's release. It does, however, have a new trailer.
I first mucked around with Fallout Shelter when it came to Android in mid-2015 and to be honest I wasn't very taken by it. It felt like a cheap mobile cash-in that I did not feel compelled to invest real life money in by way of micro-transactions. When it came to PC last year, our Jared—having spent some time in the mobile game—took it task.
"As you might expect, the experience on a PC is both similar and strikingly different than using a tablet. (I never tried Shelter on a smartphone, due to the cramped screen size.) You can use a touchscreen display for some things, but pinch-to-zoom isn't supported, which is a pretty significant omission," says Jared. "The mouse does work fine, though, with the scroll wheel zooming in and out. Using a mouse instead of a touchscreen doesn't quite have the same feel, but on a larger display I imagine lifting my arm would get tiresome."
Jared adds: "Having invested 150+ hours into the Android game, switching to PC makes me want far more depth than what Fallout Shelter offers. It's a fun diversion, but it's mostly a diversion I've played with when I'm away from my PC. If you've never tried the game on mobile devices, it might hold your interest for a bit, but like many F2P games with micro-transactions, there's a lot of waiting involved. Personally, I'd rather be playing Fallout 4, but at least this one is free."
Not exactly a glowing review, then. If you are interested in picking Fallout Shelter up though, here's what you'll require power-wise:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9550 @2.83GHz
- RAM: 2GB
- OS: Windows 7 64-bit
- Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GHz; Radeon HD 6970 1GHz
- Free Disk Space: 2GB
