Whether it’s the idea of survival, the precise pleasure of organization, or the all-powerful god-like control, something has made Fallout Shelter a smash hit. The post-apocalyptic management RPG hit the perfect level of dopamine kick and grind. Over 150 million people have downloaded the game to mobile, and those numbers have absolutely no sign of slowing. Bethesda might have missed the mark with the tragic Fallout 76, but this little handheld gem ticked all the right boxes. Fallout Shelter isn’t alone in the genre, there are other serotonin ticklers out there that might just scratch that same itch. Read on to find more of the best games like Fallout Shelter; you can always stare at your phone a bit more.
Some of the best games like Fallout Shelter
Of course, these are all different. Nobody wants a clone. Some are post-apocalyptic, and others look more toward the space management tycoon side. Either way, each of these games are real contenders, and each offer entirely new scenarios and mechanics to grapple with.
Frostpunk
Screenshot via Steam
This is a personal favorite. Frostpunk does away with the mobile game tropes of timers you can pay to decrease and an inability to truly fail. Frostpunk doesn’t care if you have buried days into your struggle to survive, it’ll still completely wipe you out and let you sit there with nothing but a game-over screen. This is like Fallout Shelter but with real consequences for your mistakes.
The plot takes the player into the shoes of the leader of a settlement trying to survive a volcanic winter. Survivors need to be found, resources need to be dug from the frozen ground, and new technology must be researched. Grueling moral choices must be made as hardships wrack the population. The populace must be kept happy or your popularity will fall, and even worse, the people will stop working. Build, collect, manage, and survive. This is no easy feat.
Terra Nil
Screenshot by PC Invasion
If post-apocalypse is your jam then give Terra Nil a go. Devolver rarely misses when it comes to producing simple yet deliciously engaging projects and Terra Nil is no exception. Earth has blasted itself to a barren, nuclear, wasteland, and is your job to come in and clean the whole mess up.
Using careful space management, resource understanding, and some nifty upgrades you can turn a glassed city into a thriving wilderness. The game has a perfect pace and cries out for replayability. Hitting 100% completion on each new map rewards the players with their own little slice of paradise as the flora and fauna return to the earth. The best games like Fallout Shelter don’t need to be all doom and gloom.
This War of Mine
Screenshot via Sony
Do you want to have a good cry? Maybe you want to be scared? Do you want your gameplay experience to have less hope and light than a Cormac McCarthy novel? Get your teeth into This War of Mine and then quickly lose them to a raider.
This is the best game like Fallout Shelter for people who want a story-driven, deep, and challenging alternative. This game shows the horrors of war in a survival setting that will have you sneaking from one safehouse to another fearing for the meager supplies you have stashed in your ragged satchel. 11 Bit Studios have created a masterpiece on storytelling and survival. Not for the faint of heart.
Oxygen Not Included
Screenshot via Steam
Take Fallout Shelter and ramp it up to 11, chuck it on an asteroid, and make all your inhabitants stressed and depressed. That’s Oxygen Not Included in a nutshell. It’s a fantastic game and is the best game like Fallout Shelter for anyone looking for a real challenge. Oxygen Not Included does away with the training wheels of Fallout Shelter and happily watches you make mistakes that result in a colony of dead or insane inmates.
Players choose an asteroid to begin their colony on, each offering different levels of difficulty and biomes. The game focuses on keeping the flow of life-giving resources adequate enough for your colonists to remain alive. Micromanage the lives of the NPCs to ensure they’re happy and healthy as you work towards the end destination of self-sufficiency.
City Skylines
Screenshot via Steam
Who knew being a mayor could be so fun? Nobody, because it isn’t. City Skylines puts you, the player, in charge of building a city from the ground up. Resource management, taxes, roadways, transport, and natural disasters prove that Rome wasn’t built in a day. City Skylines is a game that you will sit down to play for half an hour and look up from your PC 4 days later wondering where the time went and why you STILL can’t figure out how to build a working motorway intersection!
City Skylines is the best alternative to Fallout Shelter for people who want mechanics coming out of their eyeballs. It is incredibly detailed and allows the most intricate micromanagement that can result in some delicious utopias or terrifying hellscapes. Keep an eye out for City Skylines 2 also, it’s just over the horizon.
Rimworld
Screenshot via Steam
Rimworld is awarded an overwhelmingly positive rating, over 133 thousand people on Steam can’t be wrong. This game, inspired by the world of FireFly uses AI-generated worlds and stories to play out a survival, building sim you can lose days in.
Rimworld leaves the development of the plot up to the player as they make their way through the world. The simple graphics do not belie the incredibly intricate possibilities included in the mechanics of the game. You are able to play with an iron fist or create a dreamy socialist heaven. Interpersonal relationships, pets, art, medicine, and the economy are all important factors that need attending to in Rimworld. You must pursue defense, shelter, and discovery for success. This is the best game like Fallout Shelter if you want a game that builds a game and plots around you, as a player.
Project Highrise
Screenshot via Steam
The first thing to address with this game is the art style. It is endlessly stylish and beautiful to look at. As you construct your monolith of architecture the building will become increasingly busy, rooms will fill, corridors will become labyrinthine, and cable management will make the behind of your desk look like a work of art. With each new expansion to the building new challenges arise, and it is you, as the architect, to make sure your highrise becomes the envy of every corporation in the world.
If your love for Fallout Shelter lies in the careful management of room placement and ecosystem balance then take a look at Project Highrise. This game demands careful planning and organization but rewards with beautiful buildings. This is a deeply satisfying game, even if it is an almost criminal time sink.
Banished
Screenshot via Steam
Humans as a resource seems a little bit late-stage capitalist to be fun, but Banished makes it look beautiful. The game starts off with nothing but the barebones settlers to build a town with. From there it is a case of creating a thriving township with schools, farms, hospitals, and all the other amenities you could possibly need for a successful settlement. The people, either born or collected as drifters, are allocated jobs to keep the population growing and alive.
This Fallout Shelter-like game takes people management to a new level. Careful job allocation and clever town layouts provide beautiful towns. The graphics of Banished are also worth mentioning. As you make your slow way through the game, the growing town becomes nothing if not idyllic. It’s a fantastic game to relax and enjoy as it becomes less of a survival and more of a town management sim in the later game.
Factorio
Screenshot via Steam
No list of the best games like Fallout Shelter would be complete without the inclusion of Factorio. Treat a barren planet the only way an industrialist colonizer knows and focus your efforts on pure production, at any cost. Begin with simple mechanical arms and conveyors and quickly move onto industrial leviathans. Careful planning, research, and development will soon have your empire sprawling across the landscape.
Beware the locals though. A defense element comes into play as the native beasts finally take a stand against the clouds of industrial waste and fallout devastating their home. Blowing them to pieces is the only reasonable response as your juggernaut of production rolls on. This is a game that makes Atlas Shrugged look like a bedtime story.
Terraria
Screenshot via Steam
Perhaps you have delved into the world of Fallout Shelter Online and enjoyed the cooperative aspect of the franchise. In this case, you should take a look at Terraria. Collect, build, and defend your little world with a group of friends or alone in this simple-looking but complex game. The beautiful side-scrolling worlds hide a wealth of opportunity ensuring that no two games are ever alike.
Terraria allows for a huge variety of play styles. If you want to be an enemy-slaying cave explorer, there’s scope for that. Alternatively, maybe you want to relax, build a beautiful homestead and collect your harvests, go right ahead. Terraria may look simple, but give it just half an hour and you’ll quickly be amazed at just how much this masterpiece can offer.