IGN has published a guide explaining how to play the Fallout series in chronological order, timed to coincide with reports that a new Fallout game is in development at Obsidian. Written by Callum Williams and updated on 9 July 2026, the piece walks through the franchise's internal timeline and offers newcomers advice on where to begin, noting that the setting has been built up over more than two decades into one of gaming's richest worlds.

The guide counts nine main Fallout games and thirteen major story expansions across Fallout 3, New Vegas and Fallout 4, while deliberately excluding non-canon or story-light entries such as Fallout Shelter, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and workshop-only DLC. It notes that Amazon's Fallout TV series is set in 2296, some 219 years after the Great War and roughly nine years after Fallout 4, placing it at the latest end of the timeline. Chronologically the games begin with Fallout 76 (set 25 years after the war), followed 59 years later by the original 1997 Fallout, and then Fallout Tactics three decades after that, with the article flagging mild spoilers throughout.