The old Fallout games are now free for Fallout 76 players

Bethesda is preparing two new patches for Fallout 76 this month, with the first due to arrive on January 14. Although details are a bit sparse on what these patches will contain (mostly bug fixes and squashed exploits, according to this week's Inside The Vault post), there is some Fallout goodness you can access right now. If you played Fallout 76 in 2018 (the full release, that is, not just the beta), you can fire up the Bethesda launcher today and get Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, all for free.

The Fallout Classic Collection being free for 2018's Fallout 76 players was first announced in December, but the games are available now. To download and play them, just follow the instructions below:

Download and run the Bethesda Launcher for PC
Sign in to Bethesda.net with your account credentials
Install the Fallout Classic Collection titles from the Games menu

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.