It seems that Prime Video's recent Fallout TV series is encouraging viewers to go back and explore the video games that it is based on.
Following the eight-episode season's premiere on Prime Video, the number of concurrent players on Steam among all of Bethesda's Fallout games has collectively more than doubled. This includes 2010's Fallout: New Vegas, 2015's Fallout 4, and the most recent Fallout 76, which launched in 2018.
According to Steam data tracker SteamDB, Fallout 4 saw its peak concurrent players reach 83,491 on Sunday, more than tripling its normal player count.
In the case of Fallout 76, it's even more popular than the game was at launch six years ago. The number of Fallout 76's peak concurrent players reached 39,455 over the weekend -- a new record for the game since its launch.
Fallout 76 was Bethesda's first attempt at a multiplayer game in which players would work together to survive and re-colonize the apocalyptic wasteland of the "Appalachia" region. Unfortunately, the game's release was marred by a number of technical issues and bugs. The game was also heavily criticized for its lack of traditional single-player content.
Over the years though, Bethesda has released numerous patches and content updates. They've since fixed most of the bugs and have added all new single-player-centric stories and quests.
Fallout 4, meanwhile, was released nearly a decade ago in 2015. The game was met with a mostly positive reception and is also set to receive its highly anticipated next-gen upgrades for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
But even the older, non-Bethesda-developed Fallout games are enjoying a resurgence thanks to the show. Fallout 2, developed by Black Isle Studios, hit a Steam concurrent peak of 1,062 players on April 14, while the original Fallout game, released back in 1997, hit 2,300 concurrent players the same day.
While we can only track concurrent players on Steam thanks to Valve making the stats public, it's safe to assume that the Fallout games on Xbox and other PC platforms are enjoying a similar boost in players.
Of course, it helps that Bethesda has offered many of these games for free to players through various gaming services for the month of April. Fallout 76, for example, has been made free for Prime Gaming members on Xbox and PC during the month. However, this code is for the Microsoft Store, and not Steam. Regardless, the show's popularity has certainly sparked a renewed interest in the game that suffered from a rocky launch.
Meanwhile, Amazon Luna has made Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition and Fallout: New Vegas were made free for Prime Members for the next six months.
If you've yet to watch the Fallout TV series, all eight episodes in the first season are currently available to stream through Amazon's Prime Video. The first season has been met with acclaim from critics and fans alike with a 94% on Rotten Tomato.