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Bethesda have cracked open Fallout 3's hermetically-sealed, underground pre-production bunker and slipped out a few pieces of gorgeous concept art for the game. No screenshots amongst them, but then, as with the very first art we saw for the game, screenshots have never been quite as fun as checking out the art team's take on a retrpo, post-apocalyptic American society.
Bethesda Softworks' upcoming Fallout 3 will feature an original soundtrack from composer Inon Zur, the company announced today. Who's Zur? He's done a number of orchestral soundtracks for games, TV and film, notably Crysis, EverQuest II: Rise of Kunark, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Naruto: Rise of a Ninja to name a few.
Nothing like ominous orchestral tunes to help you get your atmospheric post-apocalypse on, right?
Hit the jump for the full release.
fallout 3
Worried that Fallout 3 may be a little too dumbed down for your tastes, PC fans? Course you are. The same allegations were levelled against Oblivion, if I remember correctly. Bethesda would have heard your cries, but the sound of millions of dollars in Oblivion sales kinda drowned you out. As for Fallout 3, no, they're not worried about dumbing down a PC game for console gamers at all. Well, they are, but they're equally worried about making a game too complex for console gamers! Classic rock/hard place scenario. Fallout 3 lead Emil Pagliarulo isn't worried about rocks or hard places, however, telling Next-Gen:
People like myself and some people that work here actually grew up as hardcore PC guys, and now we're older, we have kids, we don't have that much time, so we've transitioned. We're console players now.You mean the same cross-platform trend that, despite complaints from a vocal minority of trigger-happy console gamers and uppity PC types, brought in Oblivion's aforementioned millions? Think you'll be OK, Emil.
But we still have those PC game sensibilities. Those are the games we like. So I think BioShock has a little bit of that too. You can definitely feel the old System Shock roots in that game. So hopefully there's a trend there.
breaking
The Entertainment Software Association told Kotaku today that both Activision and Vivendi are no longer a part of the industry trade organization, confirming a rumor we broke earlier this morning.
"While the Entertainment Software Association remains the preeminent voice for U.S. computer and video game publishers, we can confirm that Activision and Vivendi Games opted to discontinue their membership. The ESA remains dedicated to advancing our industry's objectives such as protecting intellectual property, preserving First Amendment rights, and fostering a beneficial environment for the entire industry. Our high level of service and value to members and the larger industry remains unchanged."- Rich Taylor, Senior Vice President of Communications and Research, Entertainment Software Association
This comes a day after it was noted that Activision and a number of other notable publishers were not listed as showing at the industry's big conference.
Neither Activision nor Vivendi have responded to requests for comment. More as this breaking story unfolds.
Gamasutra currently has an in-depth interview with Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines all about Fallout 3 and just how the team plans to meet sky-high expectations for the game. Hines says that while you can't please 'em all, they try to think of the fans as much as they can:
I think that we do have a pretty good understanding what all of the different sections of our fan base are interested in, but it comes back to the thing of, you know, gotta make the game that we think is the best. Certainly, try and take those things into consideration, but there are people in the office who spend 14, 16, 18 hours a day making this game, and sometimes, if you're going to break a tie, you go with our instincts.
There are several reasons not to have a demo for your game in this demo-hungry period of gaming history. There are time constraints that come into play, not wanting people to know your game sucks before it comes out, and in the case of Fallout 3, just too much world to hack off a piece.
"When you build it as one thing, there's no way to portion off a section and have it stand on its own without putting the whole game in the demo, which we're just not going to do," said Hines. "And it doesn't really capture the fun of a game like an Elder Scrolls or a Fallout, where you can go where you want and do what you want. So no demo, sorry."It's like eating a strawberry off the top of a cake. Sure, it tastes great, but there is no way you'd know how the whole cake tastes just from eating a strawberry...and what if you're allergic to strawberries? Instead of picking it off and moving on, you'd assume the whole cake has strawberries? And what if you took an analogy too far? That's when you toss out three new screens and hightail it out of there.
Fallout 3 demo not possible [Eurogamer]
announcements
Bethesda has gone ahead and officially confirmed the Collector's Edition of Fallout 3 that leaked last week. But they added a good-news-cherry-on-top to fans. The Collector's Edition will be available for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, and it will be available worldwide without retailer restrictions. While Bethesda still hasn't announced a price, GameStop reckons it'll run you $80 on the consoles and $70 on PCs. Will GamStop be right? Will the Dynamic Duo escape the treacherous tank filled with half-opened, M-rated games? Tune-in soon to find out! Same Kotaku time. Same Kotaku channel.
Fallout 3 Collector's Edition Confirmed for Worldwide, Non-exclusive Release [Shacknews]
bethesda
We don't want [violence] to be the focal point of the game, but it is what it is. It's a violent world, and so the combat should be violent as a result.He continues: More »
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videogaming247 spoke to Bethesda's marketing head Pete Hines in London this morning during a demo of the painfully anticipated Fallout 3, asking him about the possibility of downloadable content for the title, apparently forgetting that this is the company that brought us Horse Armor.
"Given how successful it was for us on Oblivion, certainly it's a given that we'll look into it and what we'd like to do," he said, talking of extra content for the anticipated post-apocalyptic RPG. "But I can't tell you when, I can't tell you what it would be, or what it would look like. Will it be bigger stuff like Knights of the Nine or smaller stuff? We've no idea. We'll let folks know once we get down the road."Here's a tip, Pete! Free downloadable Dogmeat armor. We'll never bring up the whole horse thing again, we promise.
Dammit, I knew I should have hit up eBay earlier. GameStop has the details on the collector's edition of Fallout 3 due out this fall, and some of the contents look rather familiar. For $20 more than the normal edition ($79.99 console, $69.99 PC), you'll be receiving the much-coveted Vault Boy bobble head in all its encephalitic glory, a hardcover Art of Fallout 3 book, a Making of Fallout 3 DVD, and the game itself. All of this comes neatly packaged in a completely customized Fallout 3 lunch box, which I now have in both broken and non-broken varieties, thanks to the lovely folks at Bethesda. This is one collector's edition that seems well worth an extra $20, unless of course you already own half of it.
Fallout 3 Collector's Edition [GameStop - Thanks Dave!]
WARNING: The following article contains some spoilers.
When I saw Fallout 3 at last year's E3 I thought it looked cool but not being one of the cult of Fallout, I viewed it with the same sort of interest that I do most games I know nothing about: Curious, but not what I would call overly excited. All this changed however, this past Tuesday when I headed downtown to check out the new build of the game that Bethesda was showing off.
From a training system tied to a child's development to the fifties-meets-Steampunk look of weapons, Fallout 3 may not have a solid date yet, but after seeing this build, I can honestly say I am well and truly smitten.
Sounds like 360 Magazine had quite a spread on Fallout 3 for this last issue, with nine pages dedicated to the upcoming Bethesda game. Fallout 3, A Post Nuclear Blog, has a run down of the magazine article as well as a number of scans from it showing off some new screens and art for the game. This is one of the few games that really blew me away at last E3, I can't wait to see how it's shaping up this year.
Fallout 3: The New Pictures At PcGames.de [Fallout 3]
My loot? Pretty good. Definitely a solid contest's worth of rare and just flat out cool stuff. Now, we have something to sweeten the deal. Bethesda will also be giving the winner of our Paint-An-Egg-Contest a Vault Boy Fallout 3 shirt. There's more! The back of this shirt is signed by Fallout 3 team. So big kudos for Bethesda for pitching this in and for the devs for writing their names!
fallout 3
It seems Bethesda's changed plans for Fallout 3 quite a bit since I first got a glimpse of the game in action back in June of last year. When they originally stated they were going for 9-12 endings, I was seriously impressed, imagining the sort of replay value that would generate. Now Bethesda's Todd Howard has appeared in the latest OXM podcast, saying that the game now has more than 200 different endings as of last week. 200 endings? That doesn't even seem like a real number, does it? Considering he's also saying the game is twice as long as they initially estimated (40 hours with side quests), I am pretty sure you could play the game forever. Todd says the game is finished and on track for Fall 2008, but needs a ton of testing and polishing. Hit up OXM below for the full story while I try to wrap my head around the whole 200 ending thing.
KOXM Episode 107 [OXM Via Fallout 3 Post Nuclear Blog]
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