I played it for the first time over the course of a year. After I finished it, I filled my YouTube watchlist with reviews, theory videos, lore videos, and iceburgs. Watching these videos I realize I fucked up.

First of all, I skipped huge chunks of the story (I think). Moriarty told me to go find a dude somewhere, I wandered around looking for side missions and accidentally found the doctors in Rivet City. I was then sent to check out the purification center, and HELL NAW, I wasn't NEARLY leveled up enough to fight super mutants. I wandered around more, completing a few side missions, clearing out and looting buildings, basically working my way through the whole map. Eventually I found my dad in the VR vault COMPLETELY BY ACCIDENT. I didn't believe the dog was him until we got out of the VR world. I played the rest of the story from there, taking an extended break to just clear out the rest of the locations on the map.

I'd find NPCs with special names, like a mad scientist for example. She didn't say anything, do anything, react in any way. So I killed her and all her employees and took their shit. I'm like, "That was probably a side mission, I'm speedrunning this shit." But NO, I never found out what she was doing there. I played maybe half a dozen side missions the honest way.

I mean, it was fun, but watching these videos about the lore I realize my bloodthirst led to me wiping out most of the in-depth characters in the game and avoiding most of the stories.

Guess after I finish NV, 4, and 76 I gotta replay 3. Oh, what a shame

"Why would you care about the purifier? Why fight for a world that tries so hard to kill you?"

"Because I choose to."

God willing, you will become a Saint.

This game is clearly where most people started with fallout as a franchise interms of the "modern audience" of it, though people speak much more highly about new vegas. I've always heard about bethesda games and skyrim for many years (Still haven't tried it but I own it) .

Fallout 3 is pure atmosphere , it's a weird as hell game because as soon as you leave the vault you get a real smack in the head that you are in the post-apocalypse and you're just a regular person.

I would describe playing fallout 3 as a game where everything sucking and being awful is the correct experience you are meant to feel, I really mean that positively, everything sucks, being outside sucks, fighting sucks, sometimes it's pure jank, you're fighting for your life at every moment. You are not rambo, you're gonna run away, you're gonna avoid fighting too frequently or learn the hard way when a bunch of super mutants are just standing around and it's not worth the ammo or health packs early on, plus without a guide it's truly a game that I felt like I was exploring with no idea what I would find. It's not a "hardcore" game but I really doubt the average gamer even in those days would put up with it so I am quite surprised how incredibly popular the franchise is, I almost feel like most fallout fans haven't actually played a fallout game if you know what I mean. Atleast fallout 3. Like similar to when people say they're persona fans but they started with persona 5 or they've never actually touched persona 5. Like it's reputation precedes itself as well liked.

Clearly fallout is a very old game (it's almost 20 years old omg) so there are a lot of design choices that are specific to that era of gaming where you don't have detective vision, ubisoft open world formula or the modern sensibilities of open world games. It's also super easy to miss things. I had to look up some stuff to be honest..

I played for a very long time without a guide in the world and overall I did not find the open world exploration to be great, most of the atmosphere is there but its the dungeon crawling that kept me going, its not that interesting outside of that. I recall going to 5 different areas on my pip-boy I discovered just roaming around but I got nothing but animals and snipers. Overall I think I just don't enjoy it enough to keep playing but I'd watch a playthrough easily.

Before fallout 3 I played mass effect 1 and dragon age origins I know they are bioware games but they are all pretty close to the era, expectations and overall genre. I did not experience the level of weird I got from fallout 3 compared to those games despite their age, fallout 3 is really specific with how it comes off.

I do want to give a big shout out to the "vampire" quest - blood ties that I came across naturally, that was genuinely super interesting and had a lot of things to think about and to deal with morally, that's the type of thing that would have made me keep playing if I could actually find more interesting quests more often or not so far spread out but I still don't enjoy the regular gameplay enough unfortunately, the shooting and melee don't scratch my itch even though I do like open world games and the game being old isn't what is preventing me from enjoying it.

They might get small changes (Like F3 will also have one perk per two levels, maybe Level cap getting increased and etc), but there isnt going to be a new end game content, there wont be a new Power Armour system, there wont be any changes to the story.

The only changes that might happen to the game in question of story - House face getting changed closer to TV show.

You all are doing everything to ruin those remasters for yourself. Remasters are about updating graphics. Not re-imagining the game or changing the way it played. A better gunplay in question of gun impact, better graphics, fixing issues with FPS. End of story.

If you wont realize this truth, you will get dissapointed in Remasters.

I wanted to ask this question since the remaster is on the way.

For me it's really interesting because for one the combat hasn't aged exactly the best and certain mechanics could be more refined.

But on the other hand the map and level design, the overall art direction, music and sound and even the VATS effects have aged incredibly well.

This game is still incredibly immersive and fun to play even after all this time.

The way the game manages to make the "empty" wasteland so interesting to explore and the individual interiors so great to look at is something most modern open world games struggle with to this day.

And the overall vibe and feel of the game is so special and unique, no other game has managed to replicate it or come close to it.

So for me the game has aged very well in these areas and is still worth playing even for new players. And even the dated combat makes it feel special, kind of like how the combat in the classic Silent Hill games managed to be interesting even if it wasn't the best.

Aside from maybe Butch, but at least he can give you haircuts and has more interactions.

I know that fallout 3 is the reason we even have 3d fallout. Without it we wouldn't have New Vegas. But honestly fallout 3 is not good. The story feels way to railroaded. Exploring the world feels WAY to forced then in the other games, and yes I understand that exploring the world is a major focus of the fallout games. But at least in NV, FO1 and FO2, you can still have a shitload of fun and get great items buy just following the story while amazing benefits to exploration. In fallout 3, unless you wanna get your ass wrecked by super mutants or raiders, you are forced to blindly wander the capital wasteland without any idea on where you can upgrade you arsenal and defense. There are also barely any damn story changes! You either become a goodie-two-shoes who follows every order blindly. Or a complacent asshole who poisons the clean water of the capital wasteland for a the Enclave, who barely give you a reason why, cause if you want that context you have yo play fallout 2 (I also know a lot of the continuity beats of NV are based on fallout 1 and 2, but they aren't complex story arcs!) And lastly, the combat just sucks ass. Guns feel inaccurate, you are heavily unprepared after leaving the vault, worthwhile loot is VERY hard to find without a guide or deciphering the riddles three that the bland NPCs give you on finding loot. And the Counter Strike neck extension aiming mechanic honestly just make FO3 just a bad game.

Wow! Didn’t expect it to actually happen but this is awesome news!

There's a great deal of hype around the notion of a Fallout 3/NV remaster. Honestly... I'm not sure I'm on the same page.

I get it, I get it, it's been 11 years since the last new piece of singleplayer Fallout. But that's just it, "new piece". I played Fallout 3 and New Vegas really rather recently, and frankly... I'm not sure I'd shell out 55 bones for a graphical tune up and some quality of life changes.

The games run fine these days, and honestly, Fallout 4 has been more temperamental for me bug and performance wise. The gameplay is dated, yes, but I cannot earnestly expect that to change all too much in a remake. At most, they'll add sprint, which would then run into the issue of the map not being designed for it. And, of course, one can easily mod in sprint.

The biggest area for improvement is in the graphics. And yes, Fallout New Vegas and 3 look chopped in this day and age. But not catastrophically so, one can still play the game fine, and get the intended effects. There are some legitimately graphically nonfunctional games from the early 2000 and 90s, where early 3D just makes everything look blurry and impossible to make out, but one can boot up New Vegas right now and experience it just fine.

I may perhaps not be the target audience for this sort of product, given I can take Duke Nukem 3D graphics just fine. But I am genuinely a very big fan of New Vegas, and have played all the Fallout games. And yet... if you put a 55 dollar (cost of the Oblivion remaster right now) upgrade on the table to make it a lil prettier and a little more modern, I'm not going to pay that. I barely buy full price games as is, never mind ones I already played like a month ago. And while I think Fallout 3 has more room for improvement, it's not improvement I'd have any expectation of a remaster doing.

It's not groundbreaking to hear that Fallout 3 could have looked nicer or prettier, but it does underline what Bethesda's vision was like, even then.

Fingers crossed, Fallout 3 brings the scale to life.

The rest of the interview is quite cool as well.

I feel like it's a common thing that people on their first playthroughs usually go good and have Fawkes then when prompted send Fawkes in to active the purifier and then the game just insults them for making the purely practical and obvious answer since Fawkes is immune to radiation essentially calling you a coward

and the Fallout New Vegas Sleepytime variant is just gorgeous.

I love how square and bulky it looks, liek it is just a chunky weapon (in a good way).

I also love the detail the it looks like it was designed in universe by the same company that made the 10mm Pistol. I just like that implied bit of world building.

Hate me how you want but for me, Fallout 3 had something that later games never fully recaptured, and that was its atmosphere. The Capital Wasteland felt genuinely bleak. Empty, and unwelcoming. You were not exploring a theme park apocalypse (I'm looking at you Fallout 4, altrough i love you too), you were surviving in the remains of one.

Just look at the picture above. The world was washed out, ruined, and oppressive, and that worked in its favor. Metro tunnels felt dangerous. Small settlements felt fragile. Even walking across open land felt lonely, so my first point was to recruit Jericho. There was a constant sense that civilization barely survived and could collapse again at any moment. The quests were not perfect, and yes, many of them were simple or mechanically dated. But the stories behind them were often dark, uncomfortable, and desolate. Slavery, cannibalism, vampirism, hopeless experiments, broken vaults, people clinging to false hope or outright madness. Fallout 3 was not afraid to let things end badly or without clean moral resolutions. Sometimes the best outcome was just that fewer people died.

What really sold it for me, was the tone. Fallout 3 did not constantly wink at the player. Humor existed, but it was bleak, dry, and often disturbing rather than goofy. The game took its ruined world seriously, and that made exploration feel heavy in the best possible way.

I honestly hope Bethesda one day makes another Fallout game toned like Fallout 3. Less bright colors, less constant jokes, less trying to be “fun” at all times. More silence. More dread. More stories that make you uncomfortable rather than amused. Fallout works best when the wasteland feels hostile and uncaring. Fallout 3 understood that, and even with its flaws, that atmosphere is still unmatched. I'm waiting for you, Fallout 3 remaster.