Circana has published an all-important list of top-selling titles in the United States through January 2026, and there’s something of a revelation in there. At the tail end of the list, behind the likes of Black Ops 7, Battlefield 6, GTA 5, Code Vein II, and Elden Ring, sits an unexpected title – one that was released more than ten years ago.
It’s Fallout 4, the 2015 open-world, post-apocalyptic RPG, and it’s undergoing something of a resurgence right now, thanks to the popularity of the television show that just wrapped its second season. It managed to shoehorn its way into the best-sellers list, occupying the twentieth spot on the lineup.
Why is Fallout 4 Popular Again?
Fallout 4 is skyrocketing again, and there are several reasons why.
Firstly, the game has found another burst of positivity amid the final episodes of the live-action adaptation’s second season, created by Amazon’s Prime Video in association with Bethesda Game Studios. It wrapped on February 4th, setting up a third season that promises to visit never-before-seen regions.
Also, Bethesda recently unveiled the launch of Fallout 4’s Anniversary Edition for Nintendo Switch 2, which marks the first major Fallout title to hit a Nintendo platform ever. That won’t have driven direct sales, but it might have made some realize that Fallout 4 is still a thing, prompting them to get involved again.
In a similar vein, the core Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition dropped midway through November, and there would have been some layover sales there.
On Steam, Fallout 4 hit lofty heights through January, storming over 60,000 concurrent players. The boost was mirrored by Fallout 76, which picked up its biggest update ever in December, themed around the television series. In the last week of January, a free-play period for Fallout 76 helped it reach a peak of 33,000 players.
Those numbers were last seen in April and May 2024, when the first season of the television show debuted, pulling millions of players back into the universe or welcoming them to the wasteland for the first time.
Circana noted around that time that Fallout 4, New Vegas, and Fallout 76 became some of the top-ten most played games.
Fallout typically dominates sales charts when a new game launches. Historic data (also from Circana) showed that:
- In 2008, Fallout 3 was the 16th best-selling game
- In 2010, Fallout: New Vegas was the 16th best-selling game
- In 2015, Fallout 4 was the second-best-selling game (beaten only by Black Ops 3)
- In 2018, Fallout 76 was the 14th best-selling game
Bethesda Game Studios recently admitted that it’s working on Fallout more than anything else. There are multiple projects in the works, including a Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas remaster, and Fallout 5 should be with us in five or six years (hopefully).
That’s in addition to the ongoing development of the television show and the impending launch of a new Fallout Shelter-themed show.
Have you jumped back into Fallout 4 recently? Let us know what you think about it on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Styx: Blades of Greed’s developer has fired shots at Ubisoft
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
Fallout 4 is my favourite game of all time, and i have been a hardcore gamer since the late 80s. Honestly, it is not perfect by any means, but if i was stranded on an island and was forced to pick just one game to spend the rest of my life with, that would be Fallout 4.
It is no wonder that it keeps seeing so many people and sales to this day. For me it was a very unlucky game because it came out in one of the best years of all time for gaming, 2015. This was such a good year for games, that just it couldn’t shine as much as for example the overhyped and overrated mediocrity Expedition 33 in 2025. IF Fallout 4 had released in 2025, it would have wiped the floor with E33.