Bethesda's venture into the mobile gaming space is paying off quite nicely. Announced today, Fallout Shelter — the first-ever mobile game set in the Fallout universe — has become the top downloaded game on the App Store in 48 countries and the top downloaded app of any kind in 25 countries following its release last week.
“We play games on our phones all the time, and have always wanted to make one,” commented Todd Howard, Game Director at Bethesda Game Studios. “To have our first mobile game be enjoyed by so many is stunning. It just shows that gamers appreciate more depth and being treated fairly. It also shows people love Fallout as much as we do.”
Despite being completely free-to play-with no frustrating paywalls, Fallout Shelter rapidly climbed the ranks of the highest grossing apps during its first week of availability thanks, in part, to its player-friendly approach to in-app purchases. Within two days of launch, the game overtook King's Candy Crush as the App Store's number three top-grossing app in the United States.
Fallout Shelter remains the number one most downloaded free game on the App Store.
For those unfamiliar, Fallout Shelter is a post-nuclear strategy and simulation game that puts you in control of a state-of-the-art underground Vault. As Overseer, it's your job to build the perfect Vault, from building a variety of rooms to overseeing your own community of survivors and protecting them from the dangers of the Wasteland.
Related: How Bethesda announced Fallout Shelter and I became a mobile addicted a**hole.
Currently, Fallout Shelter is only available on the iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPad, but Bethesda maintains that it's also coming to Android at a later date. We've reached out to Bethesda to see if they have a more specific release window in mind for the Android version, but all we've heard back is that the Android version "is coming."