Fallout Shelter is one of my favorite mobile games of the past year, and with its anniversary, a major new update has rolled out.
Fallout Shelter has added a bunch of new features that make it a lot more than a resource management and base building game. This latest update introduces Quests, Wasteland exploration of locations, some new combat mechanics, a slew of new enemies, and new in-game purchases to make the game easier/faster if that’s your jam.
Quests
The biggest part of the new update by far are the quests. To get started, you need to build an Overseer’s Office. Like with all the other rooms, it can be upgraded several stages. Each upgrade allows for more simultaneous Quests. Once built, tapping on the office or the PipBoy in the menu, brings up the Quests screen. All available and completed Quests are shown. Most Quests have prerequisites like minimum level or specific equipment requirements. Once all prereqs are met, you can select your dwellers and send them off.
Each Quest has a set travel time for your dwellers to get there. Their status can be viewed just like any other dweller in the Wasteland–tap the Wasteland to see how much longer they have to get to their destination (or to get back once complete).
Once at the Quest location, dwellers can be moved from room to room to explore. There will be enemies to fight, some corpses will stay to be looted, and some furniture can also be looted. It’s easy to tell what has goodies in it as it will sparkle. Once the Quest is complete, your dwellers receive the Quest rewards and head back to your Vault. The Quests get progressively harder, and, while some are just standard “go kill something” missions, there are story lines woven through many of the multi-part quests to further flesh out the Fallout world.
Wasteland Exploration
New to the existing Wasteland exploration are random location encounters. When one of your dwellers stumbles across a location (like abandoned buildings, vaults, Red-Rockets, or Super Duper Marts), you can control your dweller through the location just like in the new quests. Just like with quests, this adds a lot more interactivity to the game.
Combat Mechanics
During combat, you can now make your dwellers target a specific enemy when there are multiples. There will also occasionally be a special critical hit targeting mechanic. Tap the check mark, then a sight zooms in and out. The closer to the bull’s eye you tap it, the higher the damage multiplier. This usually only shows up on harder enemies and bosses as it takes time to activate.
New Enemies
The game promises new enemies like Ghouls and Radscorpions but I haven’t found them yet. But just fighting more varieties of existing enemies (like boss Raiders) is a lot of fun. Hopefully neither Ghouls nor Radscorpions are as difficult as Deathclaws. I still hear a lot of complaints about vaults being ravaged by Deathclaws!
In-game Purchases
There is a new Vaul-Tec Starter Pack that can be purchased once per vault. For $4.99 you will receive one Legendary Dweller, two Rare Dwellers, one Legendary Pet, one Mr. Handy, some Nuka-Cola Quantum, and lots of Vault Resources. Since my vault is pretty well-established, I didn’t purchase one to see exactly how many Nuka-Cola and resources the pack delivers, but it seems like a pretty good deal, especially if you’re just starting out. Additionally, you can purchase Nuka-Cola Quantum in packs up to 1000. Nuka-Cola Quantum is a new resource that allows you to speed up things–travel to and from quests, building things, Wasteland exploration, etc.
Overall, I really like the latest update and the way that Fallout Shelter has become even more like a mobile version of playing the full game. I love that it’s not just a click and forget game anymore as I would often forget about my dwellers for days at a time, come back, and just collect up everything. Now I actually get to play the game versus just managing it. If you have already been playing the game or maybe stopped playing, download the update now and check it out. If you skipped the game because you aren’t into resource management games, now may be the time to jump back on! Download it for either iOS or Android.
Yes, it is a great update, for sure, but there is one thing I still don’t understand related to the quests update. I send my dwellers on a quest, but when I search for some specific dwellers…they are not on the choosing list. Some of them cannot go on a quest and I don’t understand why. i thought it was related to lvl, but there are high lvl and low lvl (30+ or 5+) missing from the list. I tried to search for them by level and by room location, but still nothing. Overall, it is something amazing to be added to this game. Bethesda never fails to deliver.