Fallout games double their player counts across Steam after Season 2 debuts — a nuclear upgrade thanks to the TV show

Fallout Season 2 began airing in December 2025 and was met with a wave of positive reviews from critics. Alongside that reception, players have been returning to the Fallout games in large numbers.

This is the same pattern we saw during Season 1, reinforcing the idea that a strong video game adaptation can drive renewed interest in the games it is based on. Fallout has benefited from this before with season 01, while other franchises like Halo failed to see the same effect after a far weaker adaptation.

It highlights how important it is for TV adaptations to respect the source material rather than alienate the existing fanbase.

Which Fallout games saw player spikes on Steam

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It is great to see just how successful the Fallout show has been, but not every game in the series is as active as the other. Some titles were already in a healthy position, while others were barely ticking along.

With that in mind, it is worth breaking down which Fallout games actually saw a spike (spoiler: it’s all of them), and what other factors may have helped push those player numbers higher.

As the charts above show, almost every Fallout title has seen an increase in players. I am checking outside peak hours here in the U.K., but even so, each graph shows a clear upward trend across the board. Even Fallout 1 has seen growth, with Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 standing out as the biggest winners.

The scale of the increase becomes much clearer when looking at the numbers side by side:

• Fallout: around 150 concurrent players to over 800
• Fallout 2: roughly 130 to more than 600
• Fallout 3: about 400 to over 1,200
• Fallout: New Vegas: approximately 7,000 to more than 19,000
• Fallout 4: around 16,000 to over 43,000
• Fallout 76: roughly 16,000 to a peak of more than 27,000

This comes alongside the recent Steam Winter Sale, which did put the Fallout games on sale and likely contributed to some of the player increase. However, the same pattern played out last year during Season 1, suggesting the TV series is once again the main driver. With Season 2 already proving popular, it seems many players are returning for another Fallout fix.

For those using Amazon’s Luna platform, Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 are currently available through Prime Gaming until January 26, 2026, to claim and redeem via GoG. If you run into issues getting those games to launch, I have already put together a guide that walks through how to get them working properly.

Has Fallout Season 2 pushed you to reinstall a Fallout game, or were you already playing before it aired? If so, let us know which Fallout and if not let us know why in the comments!

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