When Is the Fallout TV Show Set? The Timeline Explained

The Fallout TV show is set in 2296, 219 years after the Great War of 2077 and later than any Fallout game. That puts it nine years after Fallout 4 (2287) and 15 years after Fallout: New Vegas (2281). Its flashbacks go back to 2077, the year the bombs fell, and season 2 also shows the destruction of Shady Sands, which happened after New Vegas but is never given a year on screen. (Fallout, "The End"; Todd Howard on the Fallout timeline)

The show is set in 2296#

Every present-day scene in both seasons happens in 2296. IGN's timeline piece with Todd Howard gives the year officially, and the dialogue keeps pointing back to the war "200 years" ago: Vault 33's people admit they know little about the surface "after 200 years", and in season 2 Lucy doubts the Ghoul's family can still be alive after so long. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Innovator"; Todd Howard on the Fallout timeline)

That makes the show the latest point in the Fallout timeline. Season 1 runs from Vault 33 under Los Angeles to the Griffith Observatory. Season 2 follows Lucy and the Ghoul to the Mojave and New Vegas, still in the same year. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Beginning"; Fallout, "The Strip")

The flashbacks to 2077#

Most of the show's flashbacks are set in 2077 and follow Cooper Howard before he became the Ghoul. The very first scene is a children's party in Los Angeles on the day the bombs fall, with Cooper there as a hired cowboy and his daughter Janey beside him. (Fallout, "The End")

Later flashbacks fill in the months before. Cooper's wife, Barb Howard, works for Vault-Tec, and a woman he knows as Miss Williams, later Lee Moldaver, tells him the company wants the war. In season 2, Cooper, Barb and a young Hank MacLean take a cold fusion device to Mr. House at the Lucky 38 in Las Vegas, and the last episode shows Hank getting engaged to Steph there in 2077. (Fallout, "The Radio"; Fallout, "The Wrangler"; Fallout, "The Strip")

One season 2 episode goes further back into Cooper's life. "The Demon in the Snow" shows his service as a soldier in Alaska, during America's war with China, and the deathclaw he met there. The episode doesn't put an exact year on it. (Fallout, "The Demon in the Snow")

Where the show sits after New Vegas and Fallout 4#

The order of the games is fixed, and the show comes after all of them. The Courier's war over Hoover Dam is in 2281. The Sole Survivor leaves Vault 111 in 2287. The show picks up nine years after that. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout 4; Todd Howard on the Fallout timeline)

Those years show on screen. In season 2 the Mojave is a different place from the game: Caesar is dead and his Legion has split over who succeeds him, deathclaws hold the Strip, and the NCR is down to a last holdout. The show doesn't say who won the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, which keeps every New Vegas ending possible. (Fallout, "The Profligate"; Fallout, "The Wrangler"; Fallout: New Vegas)

The Commonwealth of Fallout 4 is part of the backdrop too. A Brotherhood envoy arrives from the Commonwealth chapter in season 2, and the finale's mid-credits scene has the Brotherhood recovering the plans for Liberty Prime. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule"; Fallout, "The Strip"; Fallout 4)

When was Shady Sands destroyed?#

The show never puts a year on screen for the bombing of Shady Sands. That is the honest answer, and it's why the date caused an argument when season 1 came out. (Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

In "The Trap" (season 1 episode 6), Lucy sees a classroom chalkboard in Vault 4 with a timeline of the city: Shady Sands founded in 2142, the NCR formed in 2189, Shady Sands made the capital in 2198, the NCR's peak in 2241 and "the fall of Shady Sands" in 2277. Lucy herself remembers 2277 as the year her mother died, in what she calls the Great Plague of '77. (Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Ghouls")

Read literally, 2277 would put the bomb four years before New Vegas, where the NCR is still strong in the Mojave. Todd Howard addressed it in IGN's timeline article in April 2024. He said everything in the earlier games, New Vegas included, happened, and "the bombs fall just after the events of New Vegas." On that reading, 2277 marks when the fall began, with Rose MacLean's flight from Vault 33 and Hank's grudge, rather than the explosion itself. (Todd Howard on the Fallout timeline; Fallout, "The Trap")

Season 2's "The Golden Rule" (episode 2) shows the bombing through the eyes of young Maximus. A caravan trader under Hank's control walks into the city with a bomb on his cart, repeating an NCR trooper's line about patrolling the Mojave, and there is no year caption. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule"; Fallout: New Vegas)

Fans usually put the bombing at around 2283. That figure comes from the characters' ages in the published pilot script, which has Maximus at 19 in 2296 and about six when the city fell. It's a reasonable inference, but it's not something the show says. One line in season 2 points the other way: in "The Profligate" the Ghoul tells an NCR officer that the fall was "over 20 years ago", which fits the chalkboard's 2277 better than 2283. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule"; Fallout, "The Profligate")

The show's timeline, in order#

• 2077: Cooper Howard works with Vault-Tec, hears its plans from Miss Williams and goes to Las Vegas with Barb and Hank to meet Mr. House. On 23 October the bombs fall while he is at a children's party in Los Angeles. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Radio"; Fallout, "The Wrangler")
• 2077: In Vault 31, Vault-Tec's managers go into cold sleep, to be woken one at a time to run Vaults 32 and 33. (Fallout, "The Beginning")
• 2277: The year the Vault 4 chalkboard gives for "the fall of Shady Sands", and the year Lucy remembers losing her mother. (Fallout, "The Trap"; Fallout, "The Ghouls")
• 2281: The events of Fallout: New Vegas. (Fallout: New Vegas)
• Just after 2281: Shady Sands is destroyed by a bomb Hank MacLean sent. No year appears on screen; fans infer around 2283. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule"; Todd Howard on the Fallout timeline)
• 2287: The events of Fallout 4 in the Commonwealth. (Fallout 4)
• 2296: Lucy leaves Vault 33 to find her father, and both seasons of the show play out. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Strip")

Season 3 is filming but has no release date, so 2296 is still the furthest point in the timeline. See Fallout season 3 for what's confirmed, and the Fallout TV series explained for the full story so far. (Fallout, "The Strip")