Fallout daily active players are up 600%: 'It is beyond anything I've seen,' Todd Howard says

Player engagement across the Fallout franchise has skyrocketed thanks to the Amazon TV show's success.

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In April, Amazon, Kilter Films, and Bethesda taught an important lesson on how to properly do a video game adaptation. The Fallout TV show was a huge hit, attracting 65 million viewers (32% of all Prime subscribers) in little over two weeks.

Bethesda was able to effectively capitalize on this popularity by having a multitude of games at the ready for viewers to buy so that they can continue their Fallout adventures after watching the show. Amazon and Bethesda went one step farther by giving away free copies of Fallout 76 to all Amazon Prime subscribers--it's the live service multiplayer game with microtransactions and its own subscription.

The gambit worked. Longtime fans and newcomers alike loved the show, and it seemed everyone wanted to jump right back into the universe with the games. The TV show was the perfect on-ramp for engagement in the Fallout franchise, whether it be full game sales, monetization in Fallout 76 or Fallout Shelter, or lapsed players re-playing their favorite games.

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Bethesda has been blown away by the response from the TV show, and even more surprised how the show has significantly catalyzed interest in the series.

In a recent interview with Variety, Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard said that Fallout engagement is up by 600%, which is a feat that he's never seen before.

"Depending on the Fallout game, you're looking at a 4-6x increase in daily players, which is beyond anything I've ever seen in my 30 years of doing this.

"Having an event that brings that many people into games that you have, and who have never played your games before, that's a big thing. New players who have never played a game or never played one of our games. It's a really, really unique moment."

Just today, Bethesda announced that Fallout 76 had achieved over 20 million cumulative lifetime players since its release in 2018.