Fallout Shelter: The Board Game

Fallout Shelter: The Board Game is one of FFG’s few fresh releases this year and, yes, it is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the mobile game of the same name. Unfortunately, that means it inherits the original’s main problem too: it is dull and repetitive. For a game with Fallout on the box, it somehow has all the tension of a shelter where someone forgot to install the power.

At its core, it is a simple worker-placement game. I place my workers to use the available options and develop my shelter, while the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits give the Fallout package a recognizable identity. The central mechanism is perfectly fine; it is not the mechanism’s fault that the game never finds anything more interesting to do with it.

Player interaction is minimal, so the other people at the table rarely change my experience in any meaningful way. The threats and encounters, which ought to bring a little tension or surprise, are simply meh. The result is a predictable, repetitive flow, and the game feels unfinished — much as Outer Rim did to me.

Perhaps a future expansion will manage to fill in what is missing, assuming FFG gets the chance to release one. For now, I would stay away: there is a decent mechanism here, but it is buried beneath a game that does not seem finished.