Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game, which was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, is set in the Washington metropolitan area 200 years after a devastating nuclear war. The player controls a 19 year old character who leaves a fallout shelter in search of their missing father. Fallout 3 features a freely explorable open world, and the player can engage in combat with a variety of weapons. The player can also initiate conversations with non-player characters, and depending on their actions, can affect how other characters perceive them.
The third major installment in the Fallout series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring the rights to the franchise from Interplay Entertainment. Lead designer and writer Emil Pagliarulo favored an oppressive and bleak atmosphere, and took inspiration from the dialogue in the first Fallout game. Executive producer Todd Howard wanted the combat to be a mix of real-time and turn-based combat, so that it would appeal to both first-person shooter fans and role-playing game fans. Bethesda chose the Washington metropolitan area as the setting, as the studio was based in Rockville, Maryland, a city close to Washington, D.C.
Fallout 3 received a number of Game of the Year awards, and is considered one of the best video games ever made. Critics praised Fallout 3 open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system, and the game shipped almost five million copies in its first week. It received post-launch support, with Bethesda releasing five downloadable add-ons. The game was met with controversy upon release in Australia, for the recreational drug use and the ability to be addicted to alcohol and other drugs; in India, for cultural and religious sentiments over the mutated cattle in the game being called Brahmin, a varna in Hinduism; and in Japan, where a questline involving the potential detonation of a nuclear bomb in a prominent town was heavily altered. The game was followed by a spin-off, Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment in 2010. The fourth major installment in the Fallout series, Fallout 4, was released in 2015.
Gameplay
Fallout 3 is an action role-playing game that can be played from either a first-person or third-person perspective. It is set in the Washington metropolitan area, years after a nuclear war left much of the United States decimated. The player controls a 19 year old character who grew up in a fallout shelter called Vault 101. The goal of the game is to complete a series of quests to find the character's father, who unexpectedly left Vault 101. In addition to the main quests, the player can participate in optional unrelated quests known as side quests. GamesRadar+ critic Andy Kelly estimates there are over 100 hours of content in Fallout 3.At the beginning of the game, the player can customize their character's physical appearance by choosing their gender and race. They can then allocate points into seven primary attributes: strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. These attributes are known as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, and range from 1 to 10. Additionally, there are 13 secondary attributes whose point totals are affected by S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats: barter, big guns, energy weapons, explosives, lockpick, medicine, melee weapons, repair, science, small guns, sneak, speech, and unarmed. If the player has a high charisma stat for example, then they will be more proficient with the barter and speech skills at the beginning of the game. The player can add more points into skill stats whenever they earn enough experience points to level up. Experience points can be earned through several methods, such as killing an enemy or completing a quest. When the player reaches a new level, they can select a perk, which is a permanent beneficial upgrade. For example, the perk Master Trader reduces the price of items sold by vendors by 25 percent.
Fallout 3 features an open world map that the player can freely explore. Locations the player can discover range from small settlements and abandoned buildings, to larger locations like the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. The player is equipped with a wearable computer called the Pip-Boy 3000. The device serves as a menu, and allows the player to access items they have acquired; view detailed character statistics and active quests; and look at the map, which can be used to fast travel to previously discovered locations. The player can also utilize the Pip-Boy as a radio, letting them to listen to songs from the 1940s and 1950s on makeshift radio broadcasts. While exploring, the player can recruit certain non-playable characters as companions, who will accompany the player and assist them in combat. There are a variety of weapons in the game, including standard guns, energy-based guns, melee weapons, and explosives. While in combat, the player can utilize a gameplay mechanic known as V.A.T.S., which pauses the game and allows the player to target specific body parts of an enemy. V.A.T.S. is dictated by a statistic known as Action Points. Each attack while in V.A.T.S. costs Action Points, and when the player runs out of Action Points they must wait a short period of time before they can use it again.
An important mechanic in Fallout 3 is the player's karma. Whenever the player commits an action that is deemed either good or bad, their karma will change accordingly. For example, if the player provides water to a beggar, their karma increases. Likewise, if the player breaks into a home, their karma decreases. The player's karma affects how other characters perceive them. Certain companions can only be recruited if the player meets the companion's karmic expectation. Some non-recruitable characters will be more accepting of the player depending on their karma level, such as slavers, who will be more accepting to players with negative karma, and provide services that would not be available to players with neutral or positive karma.
Plot
Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a nuclear war between the United States and China. Some survivors of the war took refuge in high-tech fallout shelters known as Vaults. The player character, nicknamed the Lone Wanderer, grew up in Vault 101, located near Washington, D.C. After the Lone Wanderer's 19th birthday, their father, a scientist named James, leaves the Vault without explanation. The young vault dweller decides to track down their father and journeys the region in and around Washington, D.C., now known as the Capital Wasteland. Along the way, the Lone Wanderer learns about their father's background from other characters, including Megaton resident Colin Moriarty, Galaxy News Radio DJ Three Dog, and Rivet City scientist Madison Li. Before the Lone Wanderer's birth, James and his wife Catherine had been working on Project Purity, in which a water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial would have purified the irradiated water in the Tidal Basin and Potomac River. However, Catherine died during childbirth, and James abandoned the project to raise his child in Vault 101.The Lone Wanderer finds and rescues James from a virtual reality program run by overseer Stanislaus Braun in Vault 112. James reveals that he wanted to revive Project Purity and left Vault 101 to seek the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, a powerful piece of technology intended to assist in rebuilding civilization after a nuclear war. When work on Project Purity resumes, the remnants of the United States government, known as the Enclave, intervene under the command of Colonel Augustus Autumn. Its leader, President John Henry Eden, wants to inject the purifier with a deadly virus that will kill any mutated organisms who drink the water, including humans. James sacrifices himself to protect the purifier. In response, the Lone Wanderer enlists the help of the Brotherhood of Steel, a military organization that protects the residents of the Capital Wasteland. The Lone Wanderer finds the G.E.C.K. in Vault 87 but is captured by the Enclave and held in Raven Rock. They escape imprisonment and meet President Eden, who is revealed to be an artificial intelligence program. Eden gives them a vial containing the virus and asks them to insert it into Project Purity. Afterwards, the Lone Wanderer leaves and optionally causes Eden to self destruct.
Using a massive pre-war military robot called Liberty Prime, the Lone Wanderer and the Brotherhood of Steel retake the Jefferson Memorial from Autumn. They learn the water purifier needs to be manually activated, or else it will shortly explode. Before James died, he flooded the control room with lethal amounts of radiation. The player can either sacrifice themselves to activate the purifier, optionally inserting the virus during the process; instruct Sarah Lyons, a Brotherhood member, to activate it instead; or do nothing and let it explode.
Development
Early development and writing
The origins of Fallout 3 date back to the cancellation of Van Buren, which was intended to be the third game in the mainline Fallout series. Under the development of Black Isle Studios, Van Buren was to be set in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, and would have included a mixture of real-time and turn-based combat. Black Isle Studios' publisher Interplay Entertainment was struggling financially, and in December 2003 Van Buren was cancelled. In 2004, Bethesda Softworks purchased the rights to develop their own rendition of Fallout 3 from Interplay for $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties. At the time, Bethesda was known for their work with The Elder Scrolls series, but wanted to expand their catalogue with another project. According to developer Joel Burgess, Bethesda's holding company ZeniMax Media turned down multiple offers from other companies who wanted to work on the game. Burgess remarked, "The sense was we had to make our own game."Development on Fallout 3 began in late 2004 with a small team of around 10 people, as most of Bethesda's staff was busy working on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. After the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006, the size of the team drastically increased. Programmer Jean Simonet estimates that when development concluded, there were around 75 team members. Lead designer and writer Emil Pagliarulo wrote the majority of the main story early in development, and when the team expanded, he allowed other designers to make rewrites and suggestions. This process exemplified Bethesda's decision to foster a more collaborative approach and allow developers to voice their opinions on various aspects of the game. Pagliarulo notes this approach differed from the rigid and "unhealthy" development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, in which the developers had to follow the outline of the original design document regardless of their opinions.
In multiple interviews, Bethesda developers noted the difficulty of working on a game from an established series they had no prior connection to. Product manager Pete Hines said Bethesda's mindset was to treat Fallout 3 as if they had worked on the original Fallout games. To this extent, they kept Fallout 3 an in-house production, and did not hire anyone who worked on the original games. Bethesda used the first Fallout game as a model while designing Fallout 3. Pagliarulo favored the oppressive and bleak atmosphere of the first Fallout game in contrast to the excessive and camp dialogue of Fallout 2. Pagliarulo wanted to instill a "rawness" to the dialogue, and included occasional profanity. Another goal was to instill a sense of moral ambiguity whenever the player made an important decision. According to lead producer Gavin Carter, the karma mechanic was designed to let the player know the immediate consequences of their actions, and make the player question whether they made the right choice. The player character's father, James, was created as a moral compass, and would react to the player's previous actions.