4 Things We Know For Sure About Fallout 5's Setting

Published Jul 30, 2026, 2:00 PM EDT James is a gaming writer from London who has spent thousands of hours exploring titles from every genre. Though he has a particular affinity for multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft, Destiny 2 and League of Legends, he has also put thousands of hours into single-player experiences, from deep RPGs to epic PC strategies. When he's not playing or writing, he can usually be found supporting his beloved Brentford FC. In case you missed all of the excitement the other week, Bethesda went overboard on their announcements, sharing a bunch of information about all of their major IPs. Fallout was no exception, as we finally got concrete confirmation that remakes for both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are real and hopefully on the way before too long. At the same time, the developer also revealed that Fallout 5 has been greenlit, and is currently in pre-production while they continue to largely focus on The Elder Scrolls VI. Though it is still likely years away from an official reveal, we can already glean a surprising amount about what it will be like, thanks to the existing, ongoing projects tied to the franchise. It'll Be In America As with all of the previous games in the series, this one will be set in the former United States, devastated by a nuclear conflagration with China. Mods like Fallout: London show the potential of taking the franchise to other countries, but they're doing far too much legwork elsewhere to move it beyond North America, which brings us on to... It's Not Going To Ignore The Show Image via Everrett Collection Todd Howard has already confirmed that the next game is going to exist in a world where the events of the Prime Video Fallout adaptation have happened. Not only does this add further credence to Fallout 5 being in the United States, but it's also a fairly safe assumption that it will take place after 2296. That would make it the latest game in the series, and it would continue a trend that was only broken by the chronologically very early Fallout 76. New York City Has Been Teased New York City streets built on The Westies set The prevailing theory about New York City in the Fallout universe for a long time was that it was simply vaporized by nuclear weapons, leaving nothing but a smoking crater behind. In-game lore has confirmed this is not the case, and it's more likely to be a similar situation to the one we found in the Capital Wasteland. There's every chance Bethesda uses this as the chance to finally visit the USA's most iconic city, and there's certainly a ton of potential in the idea. It Won't Revisit Previous Regions Bethesda Entertainment One thing the next game in the series almost certainly won't do is revisit regions that were previously the central focus of the games. One possible exception is California (since it features so heavily in the show, and it hasn't been used since the Interplay days), but generally it looks like we're headed somewhere new. Viable candidates range from Colorado to the Great Lakes region to the aforementioned New York though, so there are plenty of options on the table to keep things interesting. Unfortunately, all we can really do for the time being is sit tight and wait to hear more about what Bethesda's plans for Fallout are. Don't expect anything on that until The Elder Scrolls VI has been fully revealed though, as that's undoubtedly the central focus moving forward for a while. TV Show(s) Fallout Video Game(s) Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout 5, Fallout 76 First TV Show Fallout Cast Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, Moises Arias, Xelia Mendes-Jones, Walton Goggins Created by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky First Episode Air Date April 10, 2024