Fallout timeline explained: How the games, show, and lore connect in order

If Fallout were a person, it would be that slightly eccentric friend who can talk for hours about the 1950s - but also knows way too much about nuclear war, mutant wildlife, and improvised survival recipes involving iguana bits.

The franchise has been around for decades, bouncing between video games, spin-offs, and now a hit TV show. But if you’ve tried to figure out the exact order of events across all that content...well, it’s like trying to build a Pip-Boy out of duct tape.

The short answer - the story starts in an alternate version of our own history where the ‘American Dream’ never really left the 1950s, except everything’s powered by nuclear energy.

Eventually, the U.S. and China end up in a full-blown resource war, the bombs drop in 2077, and the world becomes a glowing sandbox of chaos. The games and the show all unfold at different points after this “Great War,” with each installment focusing on a different part of post-apocalyptic America.

If you put it all together - the pre-war politics, the vault experiments, the rise and fall of factions, and the adventures of unlucky survivors; it paints a picture of humanity clinging on, making the same mistakes over and over. And somehow, in the middle of all the rubble, there’s still time for Nuka-Cola ads.

Let's dive deeper!

The Fallout timeline explained

Pre-war America - The calm before the glowing storm

The Fallout universe’s clock doesn’t run like ours - technology advanced rapidly thanks to nuclear power, but culturally, the world got stuck in a 1950s time capsule. Ads, music, fashion...all frozen in a retro-futuristic bubble.

By the 21st century, the world was running out of resources - oil was almost gone, clean water was precious, and tensions between global powers hit boiling point.

The U.S. and China fought over Alaska during the Resource Wars, while Vault-Tec quietly built massive underground bunkers, supposedly to protect people from nuclear war. Spoiler: most of those vaults were actually social experiments that would make even the most evil mad scientist raise an eyebrow.

Then came October 23, 2077 - The Great War lasted roughly two hours, and in that brief span, nuclear strikes wiped out most major cities across the world. Yupp, that’s all it took for cities to vanish, landscapes to twist into radioactive wastelands, and the old world to die.

Fallout 76 (2018) - The first steps back into the wasteland

The earliest post-war story happens in this game. Set in 2102, exactly 25 years after the bombs fell, it follows the first people emerging from Vault 76 in West Virginia.

Everything’s still raw - buildings are decaying but not fully collapsed, and the radiation hasn’t yet settled into the “normal” hazards the later games take for granted.

There are no major factions like the Brotherhood of Steel yet. Instead, the land is full of scorched creatures, hostile robots, and desperate survivors trying to rebuild. It’s the messy, awkward first chapter of humanity’s comeback attempt.

Fallout (1997) - The original journey through the wasteland

Jump ahead to the year 2161 - the first game kicks off in Southern California, with Vault 13 sending out the “Vault Dweller” to find a water chip. Along the way, they discover super mutants - massive, musclebound creations born from the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV).

This era sets up two recurring themes in the series: the dangers of old-world science gone wrong, and the rise of groups trying to impose order on the chaos, whether through brute force or idealistic vision.

Fallout 2 (1998) - More civilisation, same problems

By 2241, the world has more settlements, trade routes, and even pre-war tech in circulation. Fallout 2 follows the “Chosen One,” a descendant of the original Vault Dweller, traveling through the now slightly more structured wasteland.

The Enclave - remnants of the pre-war U.S. government, step in as the main villains. Think power armor, advanced weapons, and the smugness of knowing you’re from the “real” America.

Fallout 3 (2008) - The east coast gets its turn

Set in 2277, Fallout 3 shifts the action to Washington D.C., now called the Capital Wasteland. The player is the “Lone Wanderer” from Vault 101, caught up in a battle between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave over Project Purity - a plan to restore clean drinking water to the wasteland.

This is where fans got one of the series’ most cinematic stories, with plenty of moral choices, power armor stomps, and trips through crumbling monuments.

Fallout: New Vegas (2010) - The Mojave standoff

It’s 2281, and the New California Republic, Caesar’s Legion, and Mr. House are fighting over control of the Hoover Dam. You play as a Courier who gets shot in the head and still manages to become the deciding factor in the entire region’s future.

New Vegas is famous for its branching storylines and the way it lets you either side with or betray any faction you like - it’s politics, gambling, and guns, all under a scorching desert sun.

Fallout 4 (2015) - The search for family in a broken world

Set in 2287, the game starts just before the bombs drop, giving a rare glimpse of pre-war life. After being frozen in Vault 111 for over 200 years, the protagonist wakes up to find their child missing - making Fallout 4 the latest-set mainline game in the series so far.

The journey to find them leads through Boston’s Commonwealth, where factions like the Minutemen, Brotherhood of Steel, and the mysterious Institute vie for control.

The Institute, with its army of synthetic humans (Synths), adds a sci-fi twist that deepens the series’ ongoing debate about what it means to be “human” in a post-apocalyptic world.

Fallout TV show (2024) - Bridging the gaps

The Amazon Prime show is set in 2296, officially making it the furthest point reached in the Fallout timeline to date. It follows new characters in the post-war Los Angeles area, but it’s packed with nods to the games - from familiar factions to vault tech secrets.

The series works as both a standalone story and a bridge, showing how the wasteland keeps evolving even after decades of conflict, settlement, and betrayal.

Why the timeline works

What makes Fallout’s timeline special isn’t just the order of events, it’s how each story shows a different stage of the wasteland’s life cycle.

Fallout 76 is about raw survival, the early games are about tentative rebuilding, and the later entries explore political power plays, technological ethics, and the struggle between freedom and control.

Even though the tone swings between grim and absurd - one minute you’re negotiating peace, the next you’re fighting mutant bears. It all ties back to the same question: can humanity ever truly learn from its past?

Conclusion

Whether through pixels or live-action scenes, Fallout tells one long, broken, strangely hopeful story - from the first vault dwellers to the latest wasteland wanderers, the series shows that even after the end of the world, people still argue, dream, fight, and occasionally dance to pre-war tunes.

The bombs may have fallen in two hours, but the fallout...well, it’s still going strong!