Fallout Community Edition (Fallout 1 for modern systems)

This site is not affiliated with Alexander Batalov, Interplay or Bethesda Softworks. We do not host any files and only link the project’s official pages.

What it is

Fallout came out in 1997 for DOS and Windows 95. The Windows version still starts on modern PCs, but at 640×480 and with old engine bugs; most players add community patches on top.

Fallout Community Edition is “a fully working re-implementation of Fallout, with the same original gameplay, engine bugfixes, and some quality of life improvements, that works (mostly) hassle-free on multiple platforms” (Fallout CE README). It is based on reverse engineering of the original executable, which Batalov first did for Fallout 2. On Windows, fallout-ce.exe is a drop-in replacement for falloutw.exe; on other systems it reads the same data files.

Current status

• Status: Working. The game is complete; development has been quiet since early 2025.
• Latest release: 1.1.0, 3 March 2024, with Windows (x64 and x86), macOS, Linux (x64 and x86), Android and iOS builds. Testers can get newer debug builds from the project’s GitHub Actions.
• Mac: macOS 10.11 or later, native on Intel and Apple silicon.

What you need

• Your own copy of Fallout. The README says “You must own the game to play” and points to GOG and Steam. The files that matter are master.dat, critter.dat and the data folder.
• A device: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, or an iPhone or iPad with a sideloading tool (AltStore or Sideloadly).

We do not link any copies of the game data.

How setup works (overview)

Configuration

Two files control most things:

• fallout.cfg: paths to the data files. Depending on your copy, master.dat, critter.dat and data may be all lowercase or all uppercase; either rename them or update the settings to match. Point music_path1 at your music folder (data/sound/music/ or sound/music/).
• f1_res.ini: window size and fullscreen. For example:

[MAIN]
SCR_WIDTH=1280
SCR_HEIGHT=720
WINDOWED=1

Touch controls

The README warns that Fallout “was designed with mouse in mind”. On phones and tablets the controls act like a trackpad: one finger moves the cursor, a one-finger tap is a left click, a two-finger tap is a right click, and dragging with two fingers scrolls the map and inventory.

Other versions

For the DOS release, F1DP is an engine patcher that brings sfall-style and high-resolution patches to the original executable. It patches the old game rather than replacing it.

Common problems

• “Could not find the master datafile”: the data file names do not match fallout.cfg (case matters outside Windows), or the files are missing. On iOS this message appears once on purpose, before you copy the data in.
• No music: check music_path1; the music files themselves (.ACM) must be uppercase.
• Release and debug builds on Android are separate apps with separate saves; stick to the release build.

Unofficial. This page is written by an independent directory. It is not made by, endorsed by or affiliated with Interplay (now Bethesda Softworks) or Alexander Batalov (Fallout Community Edition (Fallout 1 for modern systems)'s author). We do not host any files, and we never link to game files, ROMs or ISOs.