A few years ago, a little mobile game called Fallout Shelter came out and blew everyone’s mind. Here was a free mobile game that was actually meant to be played as much as the player wanted, with none of the forced timers or paywalls that then plagued (and still plague) most mobile games. Sure, Bethesda could afford to make it that way (because it was mostly meant to increase brand awareness/engagement/whatever with the greater Fallout franchise, not just make money as its own product) whereas not every mobile developer can, but that didn’t make it any less of a treat for mobile gamers.
Well, there’s another serving now in the form of The Elder Scrolls: Castles, which is basically Bethesda’s way of bringing the Fallout Shelter formula to the TES universe and the mobile landscape of 2023. This means that the post-apocalyptic vault is now a medieval castle, and yes, there is now a battle pass. However, I have enjoyed hours of gameplay at this point without putting a cent into the game, and I feel confident saying that Bethesda has once again decided that it’s a better business move for them to release a non-exploitative free mobile game in exchange for a larger player base for its premium games. And you can unlock the battle pass just through playing for free. Well, at least you can for this first one; hopefully it stays that way, though I assume it will.
However, the soft launch of The Elder Scrolls Castles means that anyone trying to download it from the Google Play Store (it’s not yet available for iOS) will be met with a message saying that the early access program is full, so you can’t download it. Luckily, that’s not quite true. Here is how to download The Elder Scrolls: Castles for your Android phone in a completely free and legal way (it will even connect to your Google Play Games account):
Note: Your phone will likely prevent you from installing APKs from unknown sources. The warning message might allow you to directly change these settings, but otherwise you will either need to allow the installation of APKs from unknown sources in either your device security settings or on a per-app basis in your app settings (for example, you might have to allow your file system app specifically to install apps from unknown sources). You can also undo these changes once you have installed the game, if you are uncomfortable with leaving these settings enabled.
- First, go to APK Pure and download the APK for Castles. Next, either in your phone’s file system or in your computer’s file system, rename this .xapk file as a .zip file, and extract its contents to a new folder. Finally, if you did this step on your computer, transfer the extracted folder and its contents to your phone’s downloads folder or somewhere else you can easily access it.
- Second, go to APK Pure again and download/install Split APKs Installer on your phone.
- Third, open Split APKs Installer, select the button that says something like install a new APK, and then pick the three APKs in the extracted folder from the first step. Split APKs Installer should automatically recognize the proper relationship between the three APKs, and after it quickly installs you should be ready to play.
That’s it, enjoy the game! Anyone who’s played Fallout Shelter will feel right at home. Even the changes are mostly positive ones, as the game has some dynasty elements that make it feel a little like Reigns or like a very lite version of Crusader Kings or something like that.
