Where to get it

Steam

2009 · First-person shooter · MMORPG

Fallen Earth

It’s 2156, and the world has been destroyed by both nuclear and bio-chemical means. Your story takes place in one of the few habitable places left in the world, the Grand Canyon. As a clone with an uncertain past, your job is survival in a world now built on destruction, betrayal and fragile factional alliances.

Released: 22 September 2009
Platforms: Windows macOS
Genres: First-person shooter MMORPG Post-apocalyptic Role-playing Shooter Third-person shooter
Developers: —
Publishers: K2 Network
Modes: Co-op Multiplayer
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Survival Open world
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB M
Languages: English

About

Fallen Earth is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game co-developed by Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth. The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland located around the American Grand Canyon. Fallen Earth's gameplay features elements of both first-person shooter and role-playing video games, first-person/third person views, hundreds of items, including improvised equipment and weapons, a variety of functional vehicles, a real-time, in-depth crafting system (which includes vehicles), various skills and abilities, factions and tactical PvP, all existing within 1000 square kilometers of usable terrain based on real-world topographical maps of the area. The game was released on September 22, 2009.

Two years later, GamersFirst purchased the intellectual property and made the game free to play. It was acquired by the publisher Little Orbit in 2018. Two years following its initial shutdown, Fallen Earth's servers were brought back online on October 28, 2021, as a free to play classic server.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game world of Fallen Earth is based on a real-world topographical map of the Grand Canyon. The world map covers more than 1000 square kilometres of usable terrain. The environment is zoneless and set in sectors which continue the story-arc of the game, and which can be advanced through at the player's own pace.

The game includes first-person and third-person views, a classless system, Player-versus-Player combat, mounted combat, crafting, and a noise-based stealth system. Fallen Earth offers customizable features, including: clothing, facial features, skin tones, hairstyles and colors, age, body and facial hair, body art (tattoos and piercings), height, and makeup. Also after this process players can add points to their character to build strength and other skills. Fallen Earth does not have a fixed class system.

Story

The Fallen Earth story begins in the 21st century, when the first in a series of natural disasters hits the United States. As Americans struggle to recover, an investment tycoon named Brenhauer buys a controlling stake in a mega-corporation named GlobalTech. By 2051, he moves his headquarters to the Grand Canyon Province, where GlobalTech eventually creates a self-sufficient economic and military mini-state. Meanwhile, in India and Pakistan, the Shiva virus, named for the dance-like convulsions that it caused in its victims, appears among the human populace.

As the infection starts to spread, countries accuse each other of engineering the virus. Political paranoia turns to open aggression and nuclear conflict. The nuclear conflict combined with the virus devastates the United States. Less than one percent of Earth's population survived the Fall, and the Hoover Dam Garrison and Grand Canyon Province are the only known outposts of human civilization.

Development

After a number of years in the making, Fallen Earth developers announced in a June 2008 press release that the game had reached feature-complete status. In October 2008, the Fallen Earth website reported that the game had reached content-complete status. The first wave of Alpha tests began in August 2008, and closed Beta testing began in February 2009. As part of a promotional campaign, Fallen Earth announced a National Tour on their website in February 2009. They planned to sponsor IGDA meetings, and participating in events across the United States, doing public demonstrations promoting the game and taking part in question-and-answer sessions with the audience.

The game was released on September 22, 2009, with pre-orders from Direct2Drive, Steam and the official website granting early access from September 9, 2009. On March 10, 2010, Icarus Studios announced the beta release of Fallen Earth for the Mac OS X platform. The Mac OS X version of Fallen Earth uses Wine technology and requires an Intel-based Mac system with a discrete graphics processor. On April 5, 2010, the Fallen Earth team announced that Lee Hammock was leaving Fallen Earth to work as story designer on a new MMO title, Gargantuan.

Reception

Fallen Earth earned the runner-up spot for Best New MMO of 2009 by Beckett Massive Online Gamer. The award was announced on March 11, 2010 The game also won the Best Online-Only Game of 2009 award by Game Industry News.

Fallen Earth has been criticised by IGN for low-quality animation and by other reviewers for numerous bugs.