# Fallout Shelter *Game* · `fallout-shelter` · status: **sourced** A vault management sim in which the Overseer builds rooms in an underground shelter, assigns dwellers to power, food, and water production by their SPECIAL stats, and grows the population through recruitment, rescue, and breeding. | field | value | |---|---| | year | 2015 | | developer | Bethesda Game Studios, Behaviour Interactive | | platforms | Mobile, PC, Console, Handheld | | subgenre | Colony sim | | subgenre secondary | Management / tycoon | | sim domain | Social / interpersonal, Industrial / logistics | | player role | Overseer | | agency model | Direct unit control, Zoning / placement | | time model | Real-world clock | | sim scale | Settlement | | fidelity | Stylized | | perspective | Top-down / side 2D | | win structure | Open sandbox | | failure model | Soft / recoverable | | narrative mode | Hybrid | | multiplayer | Single-player | | modding | None | | production tier | AA | | agent count order | ~100 | | emergence | 2 | | influence | 2 | | influenced by | [Little Computer People](../game/little-computer-people.md), [SimCity](../game/simcity-1989.md), [FTL: Faster Than Light](../game/ftl.md) | | cluster *(computed)* | C02 | | core count *(computed)* | 4 | | mechanic count *(computed)* | 16 | ## Summary A vault management sim in which the Overseer builds rooms in an underground shelter, assigns dwellers to power, food, and water production by their SPECIAL stats, and grows the population through recruitment, rescue, and breeding. ## Core Loop dig and build rooms in the vault cross-section -> drag dwellers into rooms matching their SPECIAL stats -> rooms produce power, food, and water on timed cycles -> rush a cycle at the risk of an incident -> recruit, rescue, and breed dwellers -> population thresholds unlock rooms and stronger attackers ## Design Notes Fallout Shelter is a side-on cross-section of an underground vault built downward from the door, with elevators linking floors. Each production room reads one SPECIAL stat (Strength for power), and dwellers with more of that stat finish its cycle faster; adjacent rooms of the same type and level merge up to three wide, which raises output and cuts the upgrade cost per room. Power is shed by distance: when supply falls short, rooms farthest from the power sources stop first. Rushing a room completes its cycle at once but can trigger an incident; incidents also fire from a background timer whose chance rises until one is guaranteed, spread only from empty rooms to neighbours without revisiting a room, and grow stronger with average dweller level, room level, and room width. Dweller happiness settles at 50 percent, or 75 percent in a room matching the dweller's best stat, rises with successful rushes and breeding, and falls with injury, radiation, and bodies left in the vault. Wasteland exploration sends one dweller out alone for hours of real time to fight and collect caps, junk, weapons, and outfits, spending the stimpaks and RadAway they carry, until recalled, full, or dead (proposed as timed-expedition). When it loads, the game generates what happened while it was closed from the device clock and the last played time, but incidents only occur while it runs in the foreground. ## Store ids - steam: `588430` ## Sources - src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter - src-steam-2017-fallout-shelter - src-gematsu-2015-fallout-shelter-ios - src-falloutwiki-2026-vault-dwellers - src-falloutwiki-2026-power-generator - src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-incidents - src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-basics - src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-happiness - src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-wasteland ## Relations **influenced by** - [Little Computer People](../game/little-computer-people.md) - [SimCity](../game/simcity-1989.md) - [FTL: Faster Than Light](../game/ftl.md) **uses** - [Goods consumption](../mechanic/goods-consumption.md) (core): Dwellers draw down vault stocks of food and water; shortages injure and irradiate dwellers and lower their happiness. - [Power grid](../mechanic/power-grid.md) (core): Power generators staffed by high-Strength dwellers supply almost every room; when output falls short, rooms stop working starting with those farthest from the power sources. - [Agent skills](../mechanic/agent-skills.md) (core): Each dweller has seven SPECIAL stats that training rooms raise one point at a time to 10; the matching stat sets production speed, and level-ups add health scaled by Endurance. - [Romance and family](../mechanic/romance-family.md) (core): An adult man and woman placed in living quarters meet, talk, dance, and mate; related dwellers other than cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces cannot mate. - [Trait inheritance](../mechanic/trait-inheritance.md) (supporting): A child has a 50 percent chance of inheriting either parent's highest SPECIAL stat, and parents with maxed stats can produce children with far higher stat totals. - [Lifecycle and aging](../mechanic/lifecycle-aging.md) (supporting): Pregnant dwellers give birth only when the vault has space, and children wander the vault for three hours before becoming assignable adults. - [Unit commands](../mechanic/unit-commands.md) (supporting): The player drags individual dwellers into rooms, out to the wasteland, or into a room with an incident; dwellers do not choose their own jobs. - [Building placement](../mechanic/free-placement.md) (supporting): Rooms are dug into the rock on a grid next to existing rooms and elevators, and matching rooms placed side by side merge into double and triple rooms. - [Vertical layers](../mechanic/vertical-layers.md) (supporting): The vault is a stack of underground floors connected by elevator shafts, with the vault door at the top. - [Milestone unlocks](../mechanic/milestone-unlocks.md) (supporting): Room types unlock as the dweller population passes thresholds, such as the Nuclear Reactor at 60 dwellers. - [Random disasters](../mechanic/random-disasters.md) (supporting): Fires, radroaches, mole rats, and radscorpions break out from a background timer or a failed rush and spread from empty rooms to adjacent ones. - [Raid defense](../mechanic/raid-defense.md) (supporting): Raiders, feral ghouls, and deathclaws attack from outside through the vault door, and dwellers armed with scavenged weapons fight them in the rooms they reach. - [Adaptive threat scaling](../mechanic/adaptive-threat-scaling.md) (supporting): Incident and attack strength rises with the vault's average dweller level and with the level and width of the room under attack, and each attacker type appears only above a population threshold. - [Hand crafting](../mechanic/hand-crafting.md) (supporting): A 2016 update added workshop rooms that craft weapons and outfits from scavenged junk using found recipes. - [Permadeath](../mechanic/permadeath.md) (supporting): In survival mode dead dwellers cannot be revived; in normal mode they can be revived for caps. - [Real-time clock](../mechanic/real-time-clock.md) (supporting): On load the game computes everything that happened since the last session from the device clock, so changing the device time breaks room timers. ## Claims - Fallout Shelter was developed by Bethesda Game Studios with help from Behaviour Interactive. *(confidence: medium)* [[21](../source/src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter.md)] Quote: "developed by Bethesda Game Studios, with assistance by Behaviour Interactive" (lead) - Bethesda Softworks announced Fallout Shelter, a free-to-play iOS game, at its E3 2015 press conference. *(confidence: high)* [[22](../source/src-gematsu-2015-fallout-shelter-ios.md)] Quote: "Bethesda Softworks announced the free-to-play Fallout Shelter for iOS during its E3 2015 press conference." (first paragraph) - The iOS version was released on the day it was announced, 2015-06-14. *(confidence: medium)* [[21](../source/src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter.md)] Quote: "would be released for iOS the same day" (Development) - Pete Hines named Little Computer People, Progress Quest, XCOM, SimCity, and FTL as inspirations. *(confidence: medium)* [[21](../source/src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter.md)] Quote: "Little Computer People, Progress Quest, XCOM, SimCity and FTL: Faster Than Light" (Development) - Pairing a male and a female dweller in living quarters produces children. *(confidence: medium)* [[21](../source/src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter.md)] Quote: "by pairing a male and a female dweller in living quarters to produce children" (Gameplay) - Rushing a room risks triggering an incident. *(confidence: medium)* [[21](../source/src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter.md)] Quote: "instead having the option to rush the room at the risk of triggering an incident" (Gameplay) - When power runs short, rooms stop working starting with those farthest from the power sources. *(confidence: medium)* [[23](../source/src-falloutwiki-2026-power-generator.md)] Quote: "other rooms will stop producing resources/working, starting with the rooms furthest from the power sources" (Fallout Shelter section) - A child has a 50 percent chance of inheriting either parent's highest SPECIAL stat. *(confidence: medium)* [[24](../source/src-falloutwiki-2026-vault-dwellers.md)] Quote: "Children have a 50% chance of inheriting the 'proficiency' (highest SPECIAL attribute) of either parent." (Breeding) - Children become assignable adults three hours after birth. *(confidence: medium)* [[24](../source/src-falloutwiki-2026-vault-dwellers.md)] Quote: "After three hours from a Vault dweller's birth, they will become an adult and thus be assignable." (Breeding) - Incidents and attacks grow stronger as the vault's average dweller level rises. *(confidence: medium)* [[25](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-incidents.md)] Quote: "get significantly stronger as your average dweller level increases" (Difficulty scaling) - Incidents spread only from rooms with no dwellers in them. *(confidence: medium)* [[25](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-incidents.md)] Quote: "Incidents only spread when a room is empty" (Spreading) - Dweller happiness settles at 50 percent by default. *(confidence: medium)* [[26](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-happiness.md)] Quote: "Dwellers normally stabilize at 50% happiness" (Section 4, happiness) - Keeping enough food and water in stock prevents dwellers from becoming injured or irradiated. *(confidence: low)* [[26](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-happiness.md)] Quote: "Be sure to have enough food and water to avoid either of those things happening" (Section 4, happiness) - Elapsed time is computed from the device clock when the game is loaded. *(confidence: medium)* [[27](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-basics.md)] Quote: "The game calculates everything when you load it up based on the current device time" (1.1) - The Steam edition lists Bethesda Game Studios as developer and describes building a vault and keeping dwellers happy. *(confidence: high)* [[28](../source/src-steam-2017-fallout-shelter.md)] Quote: "Build the perfect Vault, keep your Dwellers happy, and protect them from the dangers of the Wasteland." (About This Game) ## Sources - [Fallout Shelter](../source/src-wikipedia-fallout-shelter.md) - [Fallout Shelter](../source/src-steam-2017-fallout-shelter.md) - [Fallout Shelter announced for iOS, out now](../source/src-gematsu-2015-fallout-shelter-ios.md) - [Vault dwellers (Fallout Shelter)](../source/src-falloutwiki-2026-vault-dwellers.md) - [Power generator](../source/src-falloutwiki-2026-power-generator.md) - [The Fallout Shelter FAQ, Section 6: Incidents](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-incidents.md) - [The Fallout Shelter FAQ, Section 1: Important Information](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-basics.md) - [The Fallout Shelter FAQ, Section 4: Dweller Happiness and Health](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-happiness.md) - [The Fallout Shelter FAQ, Section 10: The Wasteland](../source/src-therabidsquirel-2026-fallout-shelter-faq-wasteland.md) --- Provenance: created in run `2026-10-25-catalog-game-pilot`.