Summary
Two years ago, an uncensored internal Bethesda document was accidentally shared during the FTC case over the Microsoft Activision Blizzard King buyout,revealing not only the Oblivion remaster(which wasfinally shadowdropped yesterday), but also aFallout 3remaster, slated to launch in the same fiscal year asThe Elder Scrolls 6.
Fans have voiced concern over it being cancelled, especially with so little news on the project, butan insider claimed last week that it still exists, it’ll just “be a while before we see it”. So, when speaking to Fallout 3 designer Bruce Nesmith,VideoGamerhad to ask: what would you like to see from this rumoured return to the Wasteland?
“What did you see inFallout 4? That will tell you what [Bethesda] felt was necessary to change from Fallout 3,” Nesmith said. “I know in Fallout 4 there was a lot of work done on the gun combat, because Fallout 3 is the first time they ever tried to do a shooter-style game. And, well, I think the work that was done was amazing.”
Fallout 3’s Gunplay Was “Not Good”
Nesmith openly admitted that the shooting was “not good” in Fallout 3, and he’s not just talking about it in hindsight, comparing it to all the strides in the FPS genre over the last couple of decades. It wasn’t good at the time, launching alongside industry titans such asLeft 4 Deadand the criminally underratedFar Cry 2.
Not to mention that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Halo 3 launched just a year prior.
It always felt dated. But a remaster would offer the opportunity to finally brush up on the game’s biggest pitfall. “It’s an RPG shooter, it’s not a run-and-gun shooter,” Nesmith explained. “But a lot of work was done on that for Fallout 4. So I anticipate seeing a lot of that work go into it, assuming they’re doing the same thing.”
As for how it might look, Nesmith believes that the ‘remaster’ will veer into remake territory much like Oblivion, with next-gen visuals far surpassing even the newest Fallout game: “Oblivion wasn’t just brought up to the 2011 version of Skyrim. It was brought up to something that, at least on the surface, looks like it exceeds the most recent graphics update in Skyrim.”
With Fallout 3 Remastered originally set to launch alongside TES6, and the Oblivion remake only just having come out, it will likely be a few years before we get to play it. But it’s hard not to get excited at the prospect of a touchstone of the series, the game that marked the transition from isometric cRPG to first-person shooter, getting a long-overdue revamp to finally iron out its floaty gunplay. And who knows? MaybeNew Vegaswill get some love down the line, too.
