Amazon Makes Fallout 3 & New Vegas Free To Play In The Worst Way Possible

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, two very good and incredibly popular open-world RPGs, are now free to play if you are an Amazon Prime member. But there’s some bad news: You can only play these Bethesda RPGs for free via Amazon’s cloud streaming service, Luna. Sorry.

Amazon Prime’s long-awaited Fallout TV show premiered on Wednesday, with all episodes dropping at once. Critics and fans seem to dig the live-action adaptation of the famous post-apocalyptic game franchise. And, because Amazon loves corporate synergy, it added some free Fallout games to its catalog of Prime Gaming goodies. For example, you can now download and play the original PC game, Fallout Tactics, for free if you are a Prime member. And technically, Fallout 3 and New Vegas are also available for free via Amazon’s Stadia-like cloud game streaming service Luna, but I’m not sure you should play these games this way.

As an Amazon Prime member, I loaded up Luna via my PC’s browser and played Fallout 3’s opening hour through the service and it was miserable. Sure, it’s genuinely cool to be able to hit a button on a website and a minute later, with no downloads or installs, be playing Fallout 3 or (the better) New Vegas. But playing these RPGs on Luna isn’t ideal. I have a very fast internet connection, yet I experienced noticeable lag and hitching throughout. Image quality was also a problem. It’s not ugly or unplayable, but my PC could easily play either Fallout title at much higher resolutions via Steam download or w/e.

Playing Fallout 3 via Luna on a desktop PC is not only bad, but really strange. There is no advantage. The game doesn’t take up much space, can run on modern PCs fine, and has awesome mods that enhance its visuals, features, UI, and combat. But playing through Luna means you can’t mod either game. Fallout 3 or New Vegas on PC without mods is just…wrong, y’know? It’s also not much of a gift to Prime members as these games are often available on sale and are always free on PC and Xbox via Game Pass. So I’m not really sure who will actually want to play Fallout 3 or New Vegas via Luna. If you do, a quick heads up: Both RPGs will leave Luna and Prime on October 10.

Amazon is also giving away Fallout 76 for free on Xbox and PC via Prime Gaming, too. And you don’t have to stream it in Luna, thankfully.