Fallout 5 setting, Digi Mart USA News: It has taken a long time to get a fifth mainline Fallout game, especially given the enormous success of the TV show and the continued popularity of Fallout 76. That MMO, still often regarded as a disaster developers should avoid repeating, regularly draws over 8,000 daily players on PC alone, which illustrates how popular the franchise remains.
With Obsidian officially taking the reins and Fallout 5 confirmed to be in development, progress finally appears to be underway. Bethesda continues to maintain interest through occasional updates, the most recent of which confirmed details about the game’s setting.
The source author says the setting is a major concern, since Fallout’s gunmetal-gray apocalypse worked well in the Xbox 360 era, while contemporary apocalyptic fiction shows that a ruined world need not look so drab. Fallout 4 flirted with more colorful environments, and Fallout 76 pushed that idea further, so there is a possibility Fallout 5 could regress in visual tone.
Todd Howard and Bethesda have not yet confirmed the exact location of Fallout 5’s setting. The author speculates it is unlikely to be heavily desert-focused, so as not to clash with the Hammerfell-set Elder Scrolls VI, but says nothing more definite can be said.
What is known is that Fallout 5 will be directly connected to the Fallout TV show and will incorporate its events in some fashion. The game is set in or around 2296, about nine years after the events of Fallout 4, as confirmed by Todd Howard in a 2025 interview with the BBC.
In that interview, Howard stated: “Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening.” The author notes this information is minimal and ambiguous, but suggests much of what appeared in the TV show may be elaborated upon.
Howard’s comments also loosely imply that the game’s setting and New Vegas, or at least the TV show’s Season 1 setting of Los Angeles, may be situated somewhat close to one another. The author considers it unlikely that events in Los Angeles or New Vegas would have any bearing on a Fallout game set in New York.
The author says they are glad the two projects are connected, even if only tangentially, and expects references to events from both TV seasons, possibly a third. Walton Goggins returning as his iconic character seems unlikely, although Bethesda has a history of including famous faces in its games.
The author says they are excited to see how the two projects crossover and whether the TV show’s setting influences Fallout 5’s location, or whether Todd Howard and the team are simply setting up a spectacular fall.
