How Much Money Did Fallout 4 Make

Bethesda is one of the leading video game companies in the world. The company has a long history, that started in 1986 when it was founded. Due to good games, which led to record profits, the company expanded over time, acting both as a publisher and developer.

In the beginning, the studio was known for producing games based on films, like The Terminator, Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean, with their first game being Gridiron!, a football arcade game developed for Atari and Amiga. Still, as a developer, Bethesda is today well known for The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. The two series are today recognized as the best and most profitable with millions of copies sold worldwide, and below are the ten bestselling that Bethesda created.

Updated on August 24th, 2021 by Ritwik Mitra: When one talks about the biggest and most notable video game companies around, it's only a matter of time before Bethesda's name comes into the picture.

After all, the company is responsible for creating some of the most iconic video games of all time, with franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout becoming synonymous with Bethesda's image. Given the massive popularity of all these games, it's only a given that most of Bethesda's titles have gone on to sell bucketloads of titles.

Total Sales: 1 Million

The Elder Scrolls: Arena is first on the list. It was the first game in The Elder Scrolls series and it introduced players to the continent of Tamriel and its wilderness and dungeons. It was an MS-DOS game, released in 1994, so the data of its commercial is rather obscure. It sold only 3,000 copies upon release, but sales later increased, as was expected from the first title in a series that has gone on to become one of the biggest western RPGs of all time.

Critical reception was also good, and gamers were buying it and playing it months after release. In 2004 the game was released as freeware, obviously increasing its sales. While there are no official estimates of how many copies the game did sell we can safely assume it was over a million.

Total Sales: 1 Million

The development of The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall began immediately after the release of the original game. Like its predecessor, it's based in Tamriel with over 15,000 cities, towns, villages, and dungeons, for the players to explore. In fact, Daggerfall holds the record of having one of the biggest game worlds of all time... even though the landscape itself may be rather barren, for the most part.

The game was a big hit after its release with 100,000 copies sold within two days of its release. As a result, the retailers were faced with shortages of the game. The good commercial performance later continued and the game achieved lifetime sales of around 2 million. The game was later available for a free download on the Bethesda website.

8 Fallout 76

Total Sales: 2.46 Million

While the studio invested a lot of time, money, and effort in producing Fallout 76, the game underperformed commercially and had lower sales than its two previous Fallout games, which quickly resulted in a price drop of the game. This was only a given since the quality of Fallout 76 was absolutely lackluster and nowhere near what was promised.

Fallout 76 managed to sell 1.4 million copies in the year of its release and the game's sales increased over time, to 2.46 million but they never reached that of the other installments of the series. Sales were as disappointing as the critical reception, which failed to impress critics and obviously the audience. In the end, the game was also marked with controversy after publishing its poor quality special edition game.

For what it's worth, the expansions and new content updates released for Fallout 76 have helped mitigate most of the worst issues that the game faced. The most notable expansion of the lot is the Wastelanders update, which finally adds NPCs into the game along with better questlines.

Total Sales: 4 Million

The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind serves as the third installment in the series. The story is based on Vvardenfell, which is a province of Morrowind. The gameplay is similar to its predecessor, featuring an open world and various creatures and quests. However, the game was a major leap in terms of graphics.

The game was a critical and commercial success for Bethesda. It sold 95,000 copies in the first month of its release and sold more than 300,000 copies in the year of its release. From the last available data, the game managed to sell more than 4 million copies worldwide.

Morrowind was one of the first Elder Scrolls titles to feature expansion packs, with both Tribunal and Bloodmoon being great additions in their own right. With all these expansions, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was a game that was absolutely jam-packed with content and cemented The Elder Scrolls as one of the biggest game franchises of all time.

Total Sales: 9.5 Million

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion outperformed its predecessor both critically and commercially. It featured a better story, graphics, and a bigger world with more diverse and richer content. The massive steps taken by this title further strengthened the legacy of The Elder Scrolls in the industry.

The game sold 1.4 million copies in the month of its release and after the years sales climbed to 3 million copies. Electronic Entertainment Desing and Research, a market research firm, estimates that the game sold 9.5 million copies worldwide. The game also shined critically receiving many "game of the year" awards, and today is considered as one of the best games ever made.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion also featured some truly horrid DLC that was the subject of much derision within the gaming community. However, the studio made up for this egregious act with the release of The Shivering Isles, which was an excellent addition to the established legacy of Oblivion.

5 Fallout 3

Total Sales: 12.4 Million

Fallout 3 managed to outperform all of the previous Fallout installments combined sales, having 57% stronger sales in the first week of its release than The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The fact that this game was the first-ever 3D Fallout game was a fact that no person looked at lightly, and the impressive manner in which it managed to help the franchise evolve was quite a treat to witness for long-time fans of the series.

The game sold 4.7 million copies in the first year of its release grossing 300 million dollars. The sales continued to climb, and the game's sales were boosted by 1000% following Bethesda's announcement of Fallout 3 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The lifetime sales later reached 12.4 million according to Electronic Entertainment Desing and Research, a company that conducted the research.

4 Fallout 4

Total Sales: 13.51 Million

Fallout 4 is a sequel to the previous game on the list, with the story occurring 10 years after the events of the game. This time it follows a character named "Sole Survivor" who emerges from the long-term cryogenic stasis in Vault 111. The game features similar gameplay to Fallout 3, which equally large world and content in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the USA.

Like its predecessor, the game had a strong commercial performance upon release and sold 1.2 million copies on Steam in the first 24 hours of its release, while during the same time it shipped 12 million copies to the retailers, grossing 750 million dollars. It might not be the most beloved Bethesda title due to a host of puzzling creative decisions, but Fallout 4 is still a brilliant title that deserves all its recognition.

A big part of what increased Fallout 4's sales is definitely the expansion packs. Aside from the content upgrades for the workshops, Fallout 4 was graced by DLCs like Automatron, Far Harbor, and Nuka-World. All these DLCs have witnessed favorable reception from fans, some of whom still can't get enough of this amazing title.

Total Sales: 30 Million

The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is one of the best-selling games in history, as well as being critically acclaimed at the same time. It had an impressive launch and sold 3.4 million physical copies in the first 48 hours of its release — of that were 59 percent for Xbox 360, 27 percent for PlayStation 3, and 14 percent for Microsoft Windows. Bethesda also shipped 7 million copies in the first week, while the game also being the fastest-selling on Steam to that date.

The sales climbed to 20 million after two years and in 2016 the game's director Todd Howard confirmed that the game sold over 30 million copies. The release of the expansions Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn further cemented the game's legacy as being one of the most massive and enjoyable open-world titles ever made.

Total Sales: 120 Million

The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a free-to-play RPG published for Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch. It received worse reviews than the other games in the series, with critique being appointed at its long loading screens, lack of innovation, and use of microtransactions.

The game was a commercial success, with 1 million downloads on the iOS platform in the week of release. It was later reported that the act of players spending in the game is bringing 50 000 dollars in earnings a day. The game was downloaded approximately 120 million times, which obviously includes re-downloads of the same users.

1 Fallout Shelter - 150 Million

Total Sales: 150 Million

Fallout Shelter is a free-to-play simulation video game first published for iOS and then ported to other platforms. In the game, the player builds and manages their own Vault as an Overseer. The Overseer also directs and guides the citizens of Vault and needs to keep them happy by giving them food, water, and power.

On the day of its release Fallout Shelter became the third highest-grossing game in App Store. Despite mixed reviews, from its publishing in 2015 the game was downloaded more than 150 million times, earning 100 million dollars during the same time.

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