Fallout 3 on EGTV

By Robert Purchese Published 6 June, 2007

First trailer. Game in autumn 08.

The long-awaited teaser trailer for Bethesda's upcoming role-playing game Fallout 3 is now showing on Eurogamer TV.

It's an atmospheric introduction to the apocalyptic setting, showing a world destroyed by nuclear war. As the trailer unfolds and the camera angle pans out, we eventually set eyes on a soldier head-to-toe in combat gear, who tells us, "War. War never changes."

The trailer also uncovers fresh news that the game will be out in autumn 2008, and it's conceivable that the graphics shown could be rendered on top-end PCs a year from now.

There's still no word on the platforms the game is planned for, but PC and next-generation consoles are a safe bet.

Although this will be the third game in post-apocalyptic series, it's also the first Fallout game developed by the award winning Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion team. Bethesda bought the licence to the series from Interplay in 2004 and hopes it can produce a worthy successor to the two very popular previous instalments from the late '90s.

Keep an eye on the official website for more information.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Thamuhacha #1 5 years ago

    Atmospheric, yes. Graphically impressive, notsomuch.

    But here's hoping it cuts the mustard.

  • ZuluHero #2 5 years ago

    My my, why everyone is always so cynical these days? Every new game its the same old "meh" , "looks rubbish", "i will never buy this" etc, etc. but alot of the time people change their tune, and end up buying it.

    I think that for a `teaser` it looks great. It has lots of atmosphere, textures are quite nice, the previous games were great, and on top of that they have nearly 2 years of development time left.

    I guess that its being done by Bethesda counts for nothing as well?

    EDIT: BTW that wasn't directed at you Thamuhacha, its just a generalisation :)
    Edited by ZuluHero at 06/06/07 @ 10:01

  • Thamuhacha #3 5 years ago

    I'm glad it wasn't directed at me :-)

    I think the teaser was quite good. I was just pointing out that judging the potential graphical quality of the game off the back of it is a bit of a waste of time.

    Anyway, I loved Oblivion and hope they do us proud on this one.

    More to the point: WHY HAVE BIOWARE NOT RELEASED MASS EFFECT YET??

  • ZuluHero #4 5 years ago

    "More to the point: WHY HAVE BIOWARE NOT RELEASED MASS EFFECT YET?? "

    good point!

  • space_ace #5 5 years ago

    :) it's not the soldier's voice

  • Rirekon #6 5 years ago

    "There's still no word on the platforms the game is planned for, but PC and next-generation consoles are a safe bet."

    AKA

    "It'll either rain today or it won't"

  • karstux #7 5 years ago

    Finally Bethesda has proved that they can stay true to the original Fallout heritage. It's the classic mix of retro and future with those light-hearted bits thrown in to alleviate the grim setting. Excellent!

    I just wish they had included some indication as to what kind of gameplay they will deliver. First-person? Isometric? Turn-based, real-time?

  • SilasMalkav #8 5 years ago

    The graphics in the trailer are completly unimportant. This trailer was like a pat on the back of reassurance from Bethesda, and a warm "Yes, we've played the first two games, we know what we're doing". The music and the "War never changes" line were definatly spot on.

  • Tonka #9 5 years ago

    Boothesda is the new M$ (pass it on)

  • ExplodingClown #10 5 years ago

    I'm with karstux and SilasMalkav.

    Judging from this, they've cracked it. Retro-futurism, ironic music, Atomic Age design, a murdered 1950's world - everything that made Fallout so good was there for me. Plus Ron Perlman!

    Anyone remember Terminator:Future Shock? Bethesda did it in the days before 3d acceleration, and the 'nuked city' atmosphere was second to none (it's also one of the very few movie licences that was also an excellent game in itself) so there really wasn't any doubt that they were the right pair of hands to take over Fallout. Considering what a dog's breakfast Fallout:Tactics was (even R. Lee Ermey's voice acting couldn't hide the cracks) and the execrable Brotherhood of Steel which I can't even be bothered to swear about, this has got to be a step in the right direction.

    (It'll also be nice to have some grit back in RPGs: I enjoy Oblivion but it still gives off that faint sub-Tolkien tweeness that plagues so many fantasy adventures. I remember Charlie Brooker reviewing Fallout 2 for PC Zone saying that "it's like someone filled a blunderbuss with swear words and fired it at the script" - still makes me chuckle. I mean, how many games have you played where your character could get a job as a porn fluffer and catch an STD?)

    Only question now is what form it'll take: isometric like Fallout or 1st person like Oblivion?

  • TheUnionFrag #11 5 years ago

    The teaser is actually impressive. Graphically - it's very early days - expect it to improve and likely be fully DX10 if it's a Fall 2008 release.

    The Ink Spots track was absolutely classic and had me chuckling when it panned out to the city.

    Bethesda will succeed with Fallout 3 - it's going to be M for sure, and the teaser confirms that it's going to have everything good about Fallout 1 & 2.

    Good luck Bethesda!

  • TheStranger #12 5 years ago

    "I guess that its being done by Bethesda counts for nothing as well?"

    It counts for something. Something bad. I haven't played the first two Fallouts but I have played Morrowind and Oblivion. Oblivion simplified things by means of reducing skills, adding compass, et cetera. I have no doubt that whatever it is that brought fans of the first two will be simplified (butchered) by Beth.

    "More to the point: WHY HAVE BIOWARE NOT RELEASED MASS EFFECT YET??"

    At least that will be out in '07.

    "Finally Bethesda has proved that they can stay true to the original Fallout heritage. It's the classic mix of retro and future with those light-hearted bits thrown in to alleviate the grim setting. Excellent!"

    Don't throw them your loyalty so fast. Setting is easier to do than style of gameplay. They'll want to appease the masses. Expect FPS with guns.

  • ExplodingClown #13 5 years ago

    Stranger, not a bad point about mass-market dumbing down, but in truth there comes a point where stat-juggling becomes as much fun as doing a spreadsheet. The modding community has done a fine job of tweaking Oblivion to the point where it's much a purist RPG as anything I've seen - vis. Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. No doubt they'll do likewise here.

    F3 won't please everyone, but to be honest, and having played through the demo of Van Buren (the never-published Fallout 3 from Interplay) and been singly underwhelmed, I'm just glad it's coming at all. If it does go FPS with guns, well, I enjoyed STALKER so I'll take the good with the deed.

    (You do seem rather keen to bash Bethesda though. Any reason?)

  • TheStranger #14 5 years ago

    Keen to bash em? I thought it was obvious from my post. They failed to (IMO) make a worthy successor to Morrowind.

    They made a lot of money doing so, and look how critically a success it was.

    Now, consider Fallout, a game I know about only from reading about it... Would they try to keep it pure? Not a chance. They already have a huge market. People who lapped up Oblivion for its weaker elements would see this, and any similarity to Oblivion is good to them.

    I don't think Oblivion was a terrible game, but it could have been far better.

  • SeesThroughAll #15 5 years ago

    "More to the point: WHY HAVE BIOWARE NOT RELEASED MASS EFFECT YET??"

    Who gives a f*ck about Mass Effect? Give me Dragon Age, dammit!

  • Subquest #16 5 years ago

    It's very hard to make proper judgements on the graphics from a heavily compressed video viewed in a small window. Even the Crysis video looked less than stunning on EGTV.

  • kangarootoo #17 5 years ago

    "More to the point: WHY HAVE BIOWARE NOT RELEASED MASS EFFECT YET??"

    Because its not finished.

    ...seems obvious.

  • afghan_jones #18 5 years ago

    I really hope they dont balls this one up.

    To set the scene, I hate RPGs with a fanatical zeal, and nothing makes me feel nauseous quicker then the usual orcs and elves rubbish setting. My main RPG gripe is the ludicrous side quests.

    Level 90 RPG Player -
    "Oh look, Im a huge hero in shiny armour with the sword of smiting (+10 Str) and I've just killed a dragon that was terrorising this village. Can I please have that jewel you are holding so that I can forge the crown of unending torment and defeat the evil overlord?"

    Old Man NPC character -
    "I will give you the jewel, but first you must rid my orchard of giant rats because they are scrumping my apples"

    Level 90 RPG Player -
    "----"


    Fallout was the only RPG I ever liked, mainly because you could shoot people in the groin. The original demo was even better because when you did it, the victim would shout 'ow! my groin is the groin of fire'. They took it out of the full game. Idiots.

    Please can this be good? and not an FPS. And keep the traits and skills. they were cool.

  • ExplodingClown #19 5 years ago

    @Stranger - sorry, my oversight, see your point. I suppose the rationale for what happened to character management between Morrowind and Oblivion can either be seen as gutting the game, or streamlining, depending on where you sit.

    You could say that making Oblivion friendlier to the non-RPG crowd helped it make shitloads of money on the 360 and thus might give them more financial freedom to put out something eclectic: I still mourn Looking Glass Studios, creators of some of the finest games I ever played who simply went broke - the mass market equation is far too heavily skewed on the morons -v- cognoscenti scale. Sometimes you've got to prostitute your art just to stay afloat, I guess. At least the series hasn't been gang raped in the manner that LucasArts have done to the Star Wars franchise. Mind you, those last three shitty films didn't help.

    @afghan - yes, I too am sorely tired of sub-Tolkien RPG trapped-in-a-70's-prog-rock-album-cover exploits, but I'll still play them if done with panache: it's the poor quality of the writing that mostly offends, cliche upon cliche, ugh. Planescape:Torment had a beautifully written story for grown-ups and sold no copies, so I guess we're stuck with "Ho! You, the last (insert here) must take up your secret destiny of (fill gap) and defeat the evil (whatever), starting out wearing only a burlap shirt and carrying a fruit knife, with skills that would barely allow you to shovel manure without serious injury".

    Weren't Fallout's targeted shots great? The little comments in the dialog box that went with them were top too, things like 'Raider Chief will never have children after that shot'. And those hyper-violent death animations when you stood on somebody's toes and emptied a machine gun into 'em. Happy days!

  • TheStranger #20 5 years ago

    "You could say that making Oblivion friendlier to the non-RPG crowd helped it make shitloads of money on the 360 and thus might give them more financial freedom to put out something eclectic:"

    Thats a positive outlook, and we can hope it will be right on the money. The guys at Bethesda claim to love the Fallout series. And, I certainly don't want to be seen as similar to some of the, er, angrier element you can see if you check out the BSG forums... Jeez, i'm a cynic by nature, but some of the people there are such obnoxious f%&ks, I look like a saint by comparison.

  • ExplodingClown #21 5 years ago

    Ah Stranger, you're not a cynic, you're a skeptic: I think you can still be convinced if something's good enough. If you were a true cynic you'd be putting out shit like the Little Britain game, fleecing the foolish with an eye only on the bottom line. Now that's cynicism.

    If I seem keen to take Bethesda at their word that they love the Fallout series, it's partly because of what happened to the franchise: reference my earlier post. Fallout:Tactics and Fallout:Brotherhood of Steel were terrible misuses of the intellectual property, poor quality cash-ins that frankly stank like a backed-up toilet. In a crack house. In August. What the trailer shows is an awareness of the things that made Fallout memorable, put together elegantly without the gratuitous tits & gore that signal a cynical pitch to acned twinks. It's a long nod to the knowing.

    Even if they don't go FPS, I'd still like the option to view 1st person, as sometimes the isometric viewpoint did work against setting an atmosphere - Necropolis was supposed to be a ruined city but as you could only see the ground floor of the buildings, the immersion didn't quite gel. The prospect of now being able to look up at those shattered art deco skyscrapers gives me the chills, in a good way...

  • Downside #22 5 years ago

    Fallout? Never played it but the video is rubbish, tells me nothing except it looks like Gears Of War... i.e. once glorious civilization smashed to pieces, never the same again, stormtrooper helmets, big guns, yawn. Out next year? I'll try to remember.

  • Azazel #23 5 years ago

    My my, why everyone is always so cynical these days? Every new game its the same old "meh" , "looks rubbish", "i will never buy this" etc, etc. but alot of the time people change their tune, and end up buying it.

    I buy everything because I'm rich. Mwua.

    Oh and dude above: comparing Fallout and Gears of War in the same general thought is surely contravening some kind of law somewhere.
    Edited by Azazel at 11/06/07 @ 18:18