Fallout 5's Official Setting Is Music To Our Ears

Published Nov 10, 2026, 9:00 PM EST Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work. Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work. It is baffling just how long it has taken to get a fifth mainline Fallout game, especially considering the enormous success of the TV show and the continued popularity of the once much maligned MMO, Fallout 76. Indeed, the mere fact that Fallout 76, a game that is still frequently regarded as the disaster developers should avoid replicating, regularly pulls in over 8,000 players daily on PC alone should illustrate just how popular this franchise is and how dire the need for a new entry is. Of course, with Obsidian officially taking the reins and Fallout 5 confirmed to be in development, it feels as if things are finally in motion. Bethesda, despite its many flaws, manages to eschew the adage "too little, too late," if only due to the immense amount of goodwill it has generated from its handful of several decade-old RPGs. So, one can continue to be excited, even in the face of blindingly bright red flags. It also manages to maintain this hype with piecemeal updates about Fallout 5, the most recent of which was a confirmation of the game's setting. Fallout 5's Setting Sounds Very Interesting One of the biggest concerns surrounding Fallout 5, at least in my opinion, is the game's setting. Sure, Fallout's gunmetal gray apocalypse worked wonders during the Xbox 360 era, but it's been made fairly evident through contemporary apocalyptic fiction that a world beyond repair doesn't have to look quite so drab. Fallout 4 flirted with this idea and Fallout 76 pushed it to an even greater extreme, but the potential for Fallout 5 to regress, at least in terms of its setting, is ever present. Unfortunately, that concern will linger for a little while longer, as Todd Howard and the folks at Bethesda are yet to confirm the exact location of Fallout 5's setting. I would speculate that it's unlikely to be particularly desert-focused, if only so as to not clash with the Hammerfell-set Elder Scrolls VI. Beyond that, I simply couldn't say. What we do know, however, is that Fallout 5 will be directly connected to the Fallout TV show, incorporating its events in some fashion. This, at the very least, reveals that Fallout 5 will be set in or around 2296, around nine years after the events of Fallout 4. This was confirmed by Todd Howard in a 2025 interview with the BBC, who stated that "Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening." Sure, it's as minuscule and ambiguous as information surrounding a new Bethesda game can get, but it certainly gives me hope that much of what we saw in the TV show will be elaborated upon in some capacity. It's Great The Fallout TV Show Will Be Considered Canon Howard's comments also seem to imply, at least loosely, that if the events of the TV show are being "tak[en] that into account", that the setting of the game and New Vegas (or at least Season 1's setting of LA) must be situated somewhat close to one another. It seems unlikely that events happening in LA or New Vegas would have any bearing on a Fallout game set in New York, for example. Regardless, I, for one, am glad that the two projects are connected, even if tangentially. It's likely we'll hear about events that took place in both seasons (and potentially a third at this rate), and that will be about it. One can't imagine Walton Goggins putting in an appearance in Fallout 5 as his iconic character. However, that being said, Bethesda has a penchant for putting famous faces in its video games, so who knows? Nevertheless, I am excited to see how the two crossover, and indeed, whether the setting of the TV show has any bearing on Fallout 5's location, or if Todd Howard and co. are merely setting us up for a rather spectacular fall. Video Game(s) Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout 5, Fallout 76 Created by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky First TV Show Fallout First Episode Air Date April 10, 2024 Cast Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, Moises Arias, Xelia Mendes-Jones, Walton Goggins Where to watch Amazon Prime Video