The original Fallout is free on Steam this weekend

News
By published

In celebration of its 20th anniversary, Fallout is free. Yes, if you played it new you are old now.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original Fallout, Bethesda have made it free on Steam for the weekend. You've got until 11.59PM on September 30 (Pacific Time) to grab it and even if you don't install it, Fallout will remain in your account forever. 

Fallout's debut, or Fallout: A Post Nuclear Roleplaying Game to give it its full name, was a top-down RPG with turn-based combat that ran counter to the grain back when Diablo had made real-time combat the flavor of the day. Its juxtaposition of an irradiated Mad Max-style wasteland full of gangs with a future timeline in which 1950s science fiction dreams came true made for a memorable vision, and one that's ensured its legacy to this day. 

If you'd like to reminisce further, here's our retrospective looking back at the series from its debut through to New Vegas. Or you could just grab Fallout and start playing it now, because just between you and me the original is actually the best. 

Latest Videos From PC GamerPC Gamer
Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

Latest in RPG
Sans, from the hit 2015 RPG undertale, folds his arms in a dashing suit as stonks rise in the background.
You can grab Undertale for less than $1, as the genre-defining indie RPG beats its all-time player peak for the first time in 10 years
KOTOR remake returns for annual tradition of reminding you it's still alive, but no you can't hear anything more about it until it comes back next year to say it again
Alligator skull with glowing eyes on human body and cords coming out sitting at piano with "The Norwood Etudes" ready to play
My new most anticipated RPG let me be a kleptomaniac gourmand set loose in a noir city on a quest to make 'the perfect sandwich'
Rise of the Ronin review
Rise of the Ronin review
Wyrdsong concept art
Wyrdsong, the RPG from ex-Bethesda talent, isn't dead—but it's no longer an open world: 'We're down to a skeleton crew'
A lolporrit squeals in excitement while being driven in a moon buggie in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, patch 7.2.
Final Fantasy 14 patch 7.2's trailer has me finally hyped to get stuck back in—and to go to the moon and pilot some mechs, because why not
Latest in News
Inzoi character studio - A Zoi designed to look like Billie Eilish
Inzoi is giving eager life simmers another free taste of its gorgeous character creator, with a bonus build mode demo for the architecture nerds
A group of adventurers plans out their strategy on a table of maps and documents.
This Pathfinder Humble Bundle lets you level up your TTRPG library and donate to charity at the same time starting at just $5
Sans, from the hit 2015 RPG undertale, folds his arms in a dashing suit as stonks rise in the background.
You can grab Undertale for less than $1, as the genre-defining indie RPG beats its all-time player peak for the first time in 10 years
Key art for the new Age of Empires 2 expansion showing an angry Viking and Japanese warlod.
Age of Empires 2 team continues to cook while delivering 'legendarily long' 8,000-word patch notes about 'the biggest updates' the 26 year-old game has ever had
Max, protagonist of Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Double Exposure, stares with trepidation at something off-screen with her friend.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure reportedly a 'large loss' for Square Enix, says analyst, who adds: 'The company's IP fundamentally varies too much between good and bad'
R.E.P.O. screenshots
'REPO is fun': Lethal Company creator recants their criticism of the new co-op horror game after trying to move a grand piano through a mansion
More about rpg
Sans, from the hit 2015 RPG undertale, folds his arms in a dashing suit as stonks rise in the background.

You can grab Undertale for less than $1, as the genre-defining indie RPG beats its all-time player peak for the first time in 10 years

KOTOR remake returns for annual tradition of reminding you it's still alive, but no you can't hear anything more about it until it comes back next year to say it again
A group of adventurers plans out their strategy on a table of maps and documents.

This Pathfinder Humble Bundle lets you level up your TTRPG library and donate to charity at the same time starting at just $5
See more latest
Most Popular
A group of adventurers plans out their strategy on a table of maps and documents.
This Pathfinder Humble Bundle lets you level up your TTRPG library and donate to charity at the same time starting at just $5
Inzoi character studio - A Zoi designed to look like Billie Eilish
Inzoi is giving eager life simmers another free taste of its gorgeous character creator, with a bonus build mode demo for the architecture nerds
Sans, from the hit 2015 RPG undertale, folds his arms in a dashing suit as stonks rise in the background.
You can grab Undertale for less than $1, as the genre-defining indie RPG beats its all-time player peak for the first time in 10 years
Key art for the new Age of Empires 2 expansion showing an angry Viking and Japanese warlod.
Age of Empires 2 team continues to cook while delivering 'legendarily long' 8,000-word patch notes about 'the biggest updates' the 26 year-old game has ever had
Max, protagonist of Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Double Exposure, stares with trepidation at something off-screen with her friend.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure reportedly a 'large loss' for Square Enix, says analyst, who adds: 'The company's IP fundamentally varies too much between good and bad'
A "sensor-actuator–coupled gustatory interface chemically connecting virtual and real environments for remote tasting," or essentially a virtual reality tongue in an artificial mouth
Would you like to taste fish soup in VR? Me neither, but this electronic tongue does it anyway
Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro gaming mouse on a blue background
The DeathAdder V3 Pro is currently so cheap it's put the usually more affordable HyperSpeed version out of a job
R.E.P.O. screenshots
'REPO is fun': Lethal Company creator recants their criticism of the new co-op horror game after trying to move a grand piano through a mansion
Discord Social SDK
Your Discord friends list may soon appear directly in the games you play
KOTOR remake returns for annual tradition of reminding you it's still alive, but no you can't hear anything more about it until it comes back next year to say it again