Fallout Shelter's brief iOS exclusivity has come to a close, and Bethesda Softworks' foray into the mobile market is up for grabs for free on the Google Play Store.

At 141 MB in size, it's probably a good idea to download Fallout Shelter via Wi-Fi at home (or maybe even at work). To run the game, Android 4.1 or later is required, along with a piece of modern mobile hardware: a low-end phone made within the last five years should do just fine.

Logged in to your Google account, you can initialize the download via the Play Store on a PC or mobile device.

Setting Out

A band of raiders now, or a murderous pack of Deathclaws later, it's going to happen. That carefully laidout collection of rooms and that machine-like team of specialists will, at some point, suffer a major setback for all but the most vigilant of players. Oh, and be sure to exit the game properly, or else you could return to a vault full of radiation-sick dwellers.

When things begin to go bad, you'll have to risk some human capital to put out both the literal and metaphorical fires. Whether it's mole rats or raiders, deciding quickly allows your vault dwellers to lick their wounds sooner and get back to work as soon as possible.

On the subject of "soon," it's a good idea to send out a vault dweller to scour the wasteland for resources. As soon as an explorer's jacket is available and the medbay is up and running, send out a dweller who has advanced a few levels in experience.

Bottomline

Depending on your appetite for mobile gaming, it's possible to get your fill of Fallout Shelter in just a day or two. It's only a matter of facing the same challenges thrown at you within your first few hours with the game.

Fallout Shelter looks and plays good, but there's just nothing new to do after a certain point. That could change somehow. Bethesda has promised tons of new content for the game and plans to support it indefinitely, but it isn't straying away from core gaming to mobile—at least not yet.