I played a lot of Fallout 3 when it was released in 2008, where the wasteland was practically a wasteland. I searched the big open map for all the quests, loot scraps and Nuka-Cola bottle caps I could find. I really loved it back then, and I love seeing my super mutant friends Fox or Nuclear Megaton again. But I won’t, at least not yet. If you have a similar desire, I suggest playing Fallout New Vegas instead and be patient, because supposedly a better version of Fallout 3 is coming.
This sort of thing is hard to track, but a leaked document last September suggested that Bethesda was working on a remaster for two of its biggest games: Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Bethesda has never commented on the leak, but it certainly makes business sense. The popularity of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout has increased dramatically since these games were released in 2006 and 2008. The remasters will almost certainly sell well and help bridge the gap while players wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5, both of which are still years away.
When this information leaked in September (in the form of 2020 financial forecasts), we realized that the release dates were far from reality. A remaster of Oblivion was slated for release in fiscal year 2022, while a game called Doom Year Zero was slated for release in fiscal year 2023. But neither happened and Fallout 3 Remaster was listed in fiscal year 2024, giving us three more months of expected arrival time.
However, note that these predictions were made before the Covid-19 pandemic significantly affected development plans. It’s possible that the Oblivion and Fallout 3 remasters will be canceled, but it’s also possible that they’ll be delayed by the two-year-long pandemic. Starfield also took longer than planned to launch, which may have delayed the two remasters. Even if Bethesda shifts much of the work to other studios, it will likely continue to provide oversight.
I think we will see both versions in the next few years. And this week, Bethesda expressed its desire to ride the wave of Fallout TV’s success to get people playing again by releasing a major “next-gen” update for Fallout 4 and new content for the Fallout Shelter spinoff released on mobile devices. The Fallout 3 remaster may take a while, but we’ll have a chance to return to his corner of the wasteland at some point.
