Barren wastelands. Decrepit and abandoned towns. Desolate landscapes ravaged by time and trauma. Recognisable landmarks slowly but surely reclaimed by nature after our demise. Games have consistently embraced the post-apocalyptic setting. It invites excitement, apprehension and a deep curiosity, and plays on the thought-provoking hypothetical, the 'what if?'. And when these post-apocalyptic environments and landscapes are incredibly detailed, they can result in great efficacy and power.
"Come on. Lighten up. Have a whiff."
Editor's note: Rob's piece here concludes his series of essays for Eurogamer on the seasons in video games. For more, be sure to check out Video games and the life of summer, starring Witcher 3, Firewatch and Dishonored 2, The power of spring in Horizon Zero Dawn, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Last of Us, and Video games and the power of winter, which looks at Skyrim.
Is there anything more spine-tingling than loading up Skyrim to hear those ominous chants? Now imagine that with a live choir, in London's Hammersmith Apollo, all in the name of charity. Oh - and with some epic Fallout music thrown into the mix too.
In the real world, house prices are so high that owning your own home is a pipedream for millions.
If you're feeling tired of dreary post-apocalyptic Boston, not to worry, as a Fallout 4 mod plans to send you on your very own radiation vacation.
Fallout Miami is a new-world mod that has been in development for several years, but the team behind it have now released an official trailer to display their work so far. It's pretty impressive: the first zoom-out shot feels like something you'd see in an official Fallout trailer, and it's clear the mod will contain some fully-fledged questlines to keep players hooked. The neon logo also gives off serious Floridian vibes.
So what else do we know about the mod? Looking at the information given by the modders on their blog and subreddit, they want Fallout Miami to be comparable to official DLC, with "a main quest, multiple side quests, new items and a large cast of voiced characters". If you hadn't guessed from the name already, the mod is set in Miami beach, with a map size "slightly larger than Far Harbor". The core subject matter of the mod seems to be an "ideological struggle between Order and Freedom," which seems to sit nicely with themes found in previous Fallout games such as New Vegas.
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Bethesda Games Studios, maker of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, tends to be a pretty secretive place. We won't hear anything for ages and then announcements for Fallout: 76, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 come along at once and everybody frantically starts planning time off work.
Over two years have passed since Fallout 4 was released, but for some the main game was simply not enough to satisfy their Fallout cravings, and many turned to modding to reinvent their favourite post-apocalyptic world. In the search for some Fallout 4 après-ski, one player has produced a mod known as Northern Springs DLC: a massive fan-made expansion which adds a new snowy area to the game.
It sounds unlikely The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim on Nintendo Switch will ever have a Creation Club for accessing mods as it does on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Microsoft has announced new games coming to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service during its E3 press conference - some of which are playable now.
There are Fallout mods, and then there's Fallout: New California.
Nestled in the mountains, the door that leads to Vault 11 is the kind you see hammered onto a shack. It is rotting wood and nails and spider webs clinging on to existence like the people of Fallout's post-apocalyptic Mojave Wasteland. The Brotherhood of Steel have sent us here to find a differential pressure controller, one of the parts needed to repair their faulty air filtration system.
The hunky-looking Fallout 3 remade in Fallout 4 overhaul, the Capital Wasteland Project, has all of a sudden cased development.
Fallout 3, which will be 10 years old this year (good grief!), is being remade using the Fallout 4 engine for the Capital Wasteland project.
It's been six months since E3 2017, when Bethesda announced its intention to add a Creation Club to Skyrim and Fallout 4, their massively-successful mega-RPGs known for their breadth of content and emphasis on player freedom. This club would task third-party developers with producing new pieces for the publisher's two marquee games, which players could then buy from an online storefront with real money. While some decried the service as yet another attempt to introduce paid mods to the single-player gaming ecosystem, Bethesda insisted the market for free fan-made content would remain unaffected. "We won't allow any existing mods to be retrofitted into Creation Club," reads the FAQ. "It must all be original content."
HTC Vive virtual reality headset bundles now offer a free copy of Fallout 4 VR while stocks last.
Nearly two years after Fallout 4 came out, it's getting a Game of the Year edition.
Fantasy Flight Games has licensed Fallout from Bethesda for an official board game due out later this year.
Fallout 4 developer Bethesda Game Studios' parent company ZeniMax is being sued by 60s folk singer/songwriter Dion DiMucci (best known as simply "Dion") who wasn't happy with how his music was used to sell the post-apocalyptic RPG.
After this month's news that Ashly Burch had turned down the opportunity to voice Chloe in Life is Strange: Before the Storm, due to the ongoing voice acting strike, it seemed like an interesting time to investiage the reality of being a voice actor.
Bethesda has announced a kind of paid-for mod initiative called Creation Club for Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition.
It's coming this summer for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and allows you to spend credits on mods made by Bethesda Game Studios and collaborating partners. The mods include new weapons, armour, outfits, accessories, crafting options, housing features and gameplay enhancements.
All mods will be fully compatible with saved games and your existing add-ons.
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The first big E3 conference kicks off tonight at 10pm BST as EA unveils its plans for the coming year and beyond.
Fallout 4 will be free to play this weekend on Steam and Xbox One.
Fallout 4's new PS4 pro update has landed. As promised by Bethesda's blog, patch 1.14 (also known as 1.9) pushes the game to a native 1440p, adding in expanded draw distances and a higher grade god ray effect. It also improves frame-rates compared to a regular PS4, but we're still some way off a 30fps lock. However there's a twist: by using patches earlier than 1.14, and selecting PS4 Pro's boost mode option, it's possible to achieve smoother results than Bethesda's official patch - although all other Pro enhancements are obviously left off the table.
Love Fallout 4 and feeling flush? These fancy fine art prints may be up your street.
Fallout 4 is about to get a big new update.
The food you stumble across in the Fallout universe tends to fall into two camps; surviving products from before the bombs fell (three cheers for preservatives) and dodgy looking cuisine made from whatever's lying around - or trying to tear your face off.
They said it was happening, and then it happened. Fallout 4, the third major entry in the celebrated retro-futuristic RPG series to be overseen by Bethesda, had just five months to lodge itself in the public consciousness following its June 2015 announcement. This was highly unorthodox.
UPDATE 18/11/2016 5.09pm: Fallout 4 mod support is now live on PS4.
UPDATE 19/11/2016 12.14am: Bethesda has confirmed that the mobile versions of Bethesda Pinball will be out on 8th December, while the rest are still on track for the 6th.
Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4 will both receive mod support on PS4, publisher Bethesda has announced.
It doesn't look like the PlayStation 4 versions of Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition will get mod support - and Bethesda has blamed Sony.
From what I've played of it, Fallout 4 is a game about nuclear war inasmuch as the Narnia adventures are books about a wardrobe. Nukes may add a dark wit to a few of the central systems and give NPCs something to latch onto when they want to philosophise about humanity's endless cycles of violence, but their primary function seems to be ushering you from the character creation sequence and into the vast and brackeny post-America playground where the real fun takes place. Like Skyrim, Fallout 4 is a fantasy game. It's just that this time the fantasy revolves around the notion that there could be a meaningful kind of life following any decent exchange of ICBMs.
Nuka World, Bethesda's final chunk of Fallout 4 DLC, is full of interesting sights. Look hard enough and you'll spy chairs made out of Ghouls, works of art made entirely out of body parts and - if you are really unlucky - a new species of Deathclaws called Gatorclaws.
Bethesda has paid tribute to Evan, a Fallout 4 fan who passed away, by basing a character on him in the Nuka World DLC.
GPU manufacturer Nvidia has entered the world of game development by making its very own Fallout 4 mod.
"Too many folk these days count on violence to solve their problems. You only have to look around to see where that got us," declares my android companion, Nick Valentine, as I turn another raider's face into crimson mush. He's right, of course. Still, there's nothing to be done - nobody's feeling chatty and I don't want to become a red smear on a post-apocalyptic dodgem.
Fallout 4's final DLC - Nuka World - launches today, which is a bittersweet moment for Fallout fanatics like Ian Higton. Nuka World seems like a fairly substantial expansion, offering up a new area for players to explore, but there's undoubtedly sadness in the fact there'll be no more official DLC for Fallout 4 in the future.
Fallout 4's final add-on Nuka World is out now for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
Fallout Shelter has been given a Nuka World-themed update ahead of next week's Fallout 4 expansion of the same name.
All players will have access to the game's very first 'Special Event' Quest, which introduces Nuka World mascots Bottle and Cappy.
Once met for the first time, they'll return from time to time and hand out Caps and Nuka-Cola Quantum, which can now be spent to skip Quests as well as speed them up.
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Fallout 4 has had an eventful run of DLC since launching in November of last year, but all good things must come to an end.
The same is true of production at Nuka World, the dilapidated Nuka Cola factory in which Fallout 4's final DLC is set. It was teased earlier this week with a trailer; one seemingly packed with new details and easter eggs for the observant Fallout fan.
As can be seen in the video above, Ian has pulled out 11 new details from the Nuka World trailer - some subtle, some (like the terrifying new deathclaw) rampaging in centre screen for all to enjoy. If you spotted any Ian missed, please feel free to share your knowledge in the comments below.
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Fallout 4's final DLC, Nuka-World, comes out on Tuesday, 30th August.
Another month has passed, and players of the PlayStation 4 version of Fallout 4 are still no closer to getting the promised mod support.
According to the date but perhaps not the sky it's summer - so there's a summer sale on the PlayStation Store. It's under way now and there are some eye-catching bargains.
Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Workshop DLC, out on 26th July, is the first Workshop add-on with quests.
The creator of one of Fallout: New Vegas' biggest and best mods has drawn attention to the striking similarities between his work and a Fallout 4 DLC quest.
Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Workshop DLC comes out on 26th July, Bethesda has announced.
Fallout 4 streamer T Ronix has done the seemingly impossible: he's completed Bethesda's latest post-apocalyptic open-world adventure on Survival Mode without taking a single hit.
Bethesda has put out an update for Fallout 4 that adds more than 300 new player names to Codsworth's vocabulary.
Fallout 4's most protective gear isn't its power armour - it's its rubbish bins.
UPDATE 29/06/2016 5.14pm: Fallout 4 mods have been delayed on PS4, with no word on when to expect them.
Remember the Pip-Boy from the Fallout 4: Pip-Boy edition of the game? Bethesda just announced a better - and more expensive - Pip-Boy due out later in 2016.
One of the bigger surprises to come out of Bethesda's E3 conference was the news that the publisher had been secretly working on virtual reality demos of both Doom and Fallout 4 for the HTC Vive. While the Doom demo may never be more than a demo, Bethesda's marketing boss Pete Hines confirmed Fallout 4 for Vive would get a commercial release in 2017.
Fallout 4 developer Bethesda announced a new expansion entitled Nuka World, due this August.
Bethesda Game Studios development chief Todd Howard said Nuka World is the final Fallout 4 DLC, and is a major story-based add-on.
At the publisher's press conference Bethesda also teased the Vault-Tec Workshop, allowing players to build their own vaults. That's due in July.
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Fallout 4's user created mods at last arrive on console - a feature rarely seen outside of PC's domain, and something of an experiment with its Xbox One debut this month. Over 800 mods are up for grabs, ranging from graphical tweaks, new sound effects, and even brand new missions - and PS4 owners are expected to receive a similar update later this month. A surprising amount of content makes the jump from PC to Xbox One too, but just how impactful are they on the game's visuals and performance?
UPDATE 7th June 2016: Bethesda has told Fallout 4 mod creators who believe their work has been stolen to file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown request.
Fallout 4's latest Far Harbor DLC performed poorly on PS4, where frame-rates typically stuck at 20fps, and even locked to 15fps at points. However, Bethesda has announced that a solution is readily available, ahead of the patch's arrival. Simply deleting the expansion from your hard drive, and then downloading a newly updated build of Far harbor from the PSN servers is said to solve the problem. Our tests show this is very much the case, and the update gives PS4 a remarkable turnaround in frame-rates - though, perhaps inevitably, not without a drawback.
The good news is PS4 now runs at a practically locked 30fps line, at some points doubling the frame-rate seen in Far Harbor's 15fps stretches at launch. It represents a huge leap over what we had in its original state, and the game is vastly smoother to play with this updated build in place. However, such a radical boost does come at a price, and while the island's distinctive volumetric fog is still in play, the effect is also now visibly dialed back on PS4.
In several scenes throughout our video comparison, plumes of fog are removed from the ground on PS4 to create a sparser atmosphere compared to the original DLC. Woodlands are more barren compared to Xbox One in particular, where its older Far Harbor build retains the heavier layers of fog. It's clear this effect was indeed culpable for the frame-rates drops on both machines, and PS4 has made the necessary trade-off. However, whether Xbox One is also set to receive a similar patch - to boost performance and lower fog density in the same manner - remains to be seen
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UPDATE 31/05/2016 7.51pm: Fallout 4 mods are now live on Xbox One. Bethesda just said so.
Fallout 4 mods will be available on Xbox One next Tuesday, 31st May.
A dedicated group of modders are collaborating to make a colossal Fallout 4 campaign set in Seattle.
Ian's been playing a Megaton of Fallout these last few days. Specifically, he's been getting stuck into Fallout 4's newest DLC, Far Harbor - or as we've affectionately dubbed it in the office, Fahhaahahbrah. Not content with making a very helpful explainer on how you can get started with the DLC, or even with playing the first four hours in one go for our entertainment, he's now back with another in-depth video in which he tracks down Far Harbor's most interesting easter eggs.
Fallout 4's largest expansion to date is more soggy B&B holiday than a hair-raising voyage to parts unknown, but I can't fault its opening sections. Dispatched to a mysterious island in search of a teenage runaway, I've barely set foot in the town of Far Harbor itself when I'm asked to chase off a mob of hungry fishmen, spawned by the radioactive fog that rolls across the surrounding country like a designer's wayward imagination.
He'd never tell you this himself, but poor Ian was up until 3am last night putting together a video explainer on how to get started in Fallout 4's latest DLC, Far Harbor (leaving out that 'u' made me hurt typing it as much as it did you reading it, trust me).
Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC is out today, but to access it you need to do a bit of this and that. Thankfully, Eurogamer's Ian Higton has worked it all out and created a cool little video guide for your viewing pleasure.
There's a lot to the Far Harbor add-on for Fallout 4 - and via a new video, below, we learn about much of it.
Why did I decide to walk all the way to the sea in one evening while playing Fallout 4's new Survival Mode? I don't know. Does the swallow question why it flies south in winter, or the salmon why it must hurl itself against the rapids? All I know is that on firing up a new save, I felt the call of the ocean in my marrow.
Here's our best look yet at upcoming Fallout 4 expansion Far Harbor, which will arrive later this month on 19th May for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Fallout 4 developer Bethesda has boasted that Far Harbor will host the largest landmass ever added to a Fallout game via DLC. With it will come new quests, settlements, dungeons and radioactive beasties - you can glimpse several in the trailer below.
There's also a look at a secretive synth colony which you will be investigating. They're having a bit of a barney with the Children of Atom and the local Maine townsfolk.
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UPDATE 4th May 2016: Survival Mode comes to the console versions of Fallout 4 this Friday, 6th May.
Fallout 4 mods come to Xbox One in May, Bethesda announced. They arrive on PlayStation 4 a month later, in June.
Last year a Fallout 4 version of the 1956 Ford F100 was sent to Forza 6 players. Today, it's the Chryslus Rocket '69's turn.
One of Fallout 4's best features has been modded into Fallout: New Vegas - and it makes the game a lot better to play.
Hello from EGX Rezzed, here in London's Tobacco Dock, which last night hosted the BAFTA Game Awards.
Wasteland Workshop, Fallout 4's second DLC add-on, comes out on Tuesday, 12th April on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Fallout 4's extra hard Survival Mode enters beta today on Steam and Bethesda has provided a full breakdown of everything this new challenge mode changes.
Fallout 4! Is a game that quite a few people spent quite a lot of time playing, so no doubt they'll be delighted that the first significant drop of DLC is here, at last. You can read our full review of the update here, but if you're rushed for time here's the top-line: there's a dash of story in there, and about three to four hours of narrative to play through - but, more importantly, there are robots!
The thing I like best about Fallout 4's first DLC pack is that it lets you decide precisely how pissed off you want to feel about Bethesda's companion AI. Automatron's customisable robot buddies come in all shapes and sizes and so, of course, do Fallout's environments - it's therefore wise, before entering a derelict building, to make adjustments not just to your droid's arsenal, but the width of its stride.
The vanilla Protectron biped setup? Well, you're probably safe with stairs as long as you're not expecting a huge turn of speed. But the Sentrybot's towering tripod, with its generous inventory and additional hardpoints for armour pieces? That's going to snag on something eventually - one of mine wrapped itself around another robot while leaving the construction pad. Imagine it filling the corridor behind you as you back away from a kamikaze Supermutant.
After much tinkering I've found that the flimsy Mr Handy thruster-pack delivers consistent performance in the field, because it's hard to trip over the level geometry when you have no feet, but there was, admittedly, that time when I closed a hangar door and my patented Edwinator V6 swooped down triumphantly and got stuck in the mechanism. Oh Edwinator V6, you're such a prankster. Let's see if we can't exchange that silly jump-jet of yours for a set of caterpillar treads.
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Fallout 4's long-awaited extra hard Survival Mode will launch on Steam beta next week, developer Bethesda teased on Twitter.
"Once it's out of PC beta it'll go to Steam release and we can submit for consoles," tweeted Bethesda vice president of marketing and PR Pete Hines.
We previously argued that Fallout 4 could do with a proper Hardcore Mode and this update should deliver.
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Fallout 4 is packed with stuff, including cool holotape games you can play on terminals. These holotape games are based on famous retro arcade games, such as Donkey Kong and Pitfall. Now, with the arrival of the Automatron add-on, a new holotape has been added to the mix.
A Fallout 4 modder has created a mod that lets you play as everyone's favourite Commonwealth canine: Dogmeat.
UPDATE 21/03/2016 12.00pm: Sony has now confirmed it is not honouring its listing of the Fallout 4 season pass, which priced the download as free for a brief period last week.
Automatron, the first add-on for Fallout 4, launches for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 22nd March.
The DLC costs £7.99 or comes as part of the game's season pass.
Automatron sees you hunting down evil robots unleashed by the mysterious Mechanist. You can then reassemble their pieces into custom robot companions of your own.
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A Reddit user has dug into Fallout 4's files and extracted information about the upcoming Survival difficulty - and it sounds like it significantly changes the game.
UPDATE 01/03/2015 1am: Fallout 4's 1.4 update is now out of beta on Steam, though there's not telling when it's heading to consoles.
ORIGINAL STORY 23/02/2015: Fallout 4 1.4 update is now in beta on Steam, and due out proper on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One soon, Bethesda has said.
The patch paves the way for the add-on content announced last week, but now adds new features that improve the post-apocalyptic open-world role-playing game's settlements systems.
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Fallout 4: Far Harbor is the meatiest and most interesting Fallout 4 add-on announced yesterday.
It's the only DLC we know of that adds a whole new area - a coastal island and the largest new Fallout landmass ever added as DLC, developer Bethesda has said. Its map will also play host to new faction quests, settlements, creatures and dungeons.
What you may not know is Far Harbor is based on a real-world place, just as the game's main campaign is set in the remnants of a post-apocalyptic Boston.
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Bethesda has revealed the first wave of add-ons for Fallout 4 and confirmed a price hike for the season pass.
In a post on Bethesda.net, Bethesda announced add-ons Automatron, Wasteland Workshop and Far Harbor.
Automatron, out in March 2016 for £7.99, revolves around the Mechanist, who releases evil robots into the Commonwealth. The Robobrain, last seen in New Vegas, returns. Also, you can build and mod your own custom robot companion. There are hundreds of mods, Bethesda said, as well as the new lightning chain gun.
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Fallout 4 received a fair bit of criticism for its Survival Mode that made the game harder, but didn't factor in all the dangers that made the mode such a hit with hardcore New Vegas fans. That will be amended in a future update.
Omitted completely in Bethesda's latest release notes, patch 1.03 has boosted Fallout 4's visual settings on PS4 and Xbox One. The update weighs in at 500MB on each console, and makes surprising improvements to draw distance settings for geometry and foliage. It's a great addition to the game that pulls it closer to the look of PC's higher 'fade' settings, but is there a trade-off in play on console - and does this advantage come at any cost to their performance?
We're pleased to say it doesn't in general and both consoles hand in with near identical grades of performance before and after the latest update is applied. However, PS4 suffers somewhat in the transition in one area in particular: Diamond City. In this case, performance drops by 2-3fps on average on overlooking the centre, dragging frame-rate down in comparison to version 1.02. This is not an issue on Xbox One, which turns in identical readings while rising in a lift behind the city.
Fortunately, the Diamond City portion of Fallout 4 is the only area in our test suite that is affected negatively on PlayStation 4. Every other segment - from a Deathclaw battle in Concord to shootouts on top of the Corvega factory - run with precisely the same level of performance as before (including a lengthy bout of play at near 20fps for the latter). In other words, patch 1.03 does very little to improve performance as a whole on either console, and where it dropped on patch 1.02, we still have significant issues here.
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UPDATE 4.00pm: "We are following up with ThinkGeek as it is not the kind of service we want folks to experience from our store," a Bethesda spokesperson told Eurogamer, referencing the company which runs the Bethesda official store.
UPDATE 9/2/16 4.05pm: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners can now finally download Fallout 4's 1.3 update.
The patch launched last week for PC and is detailed below. It was originally due to arrive before the weekend on console. Well, at least it's here now.
ORIGINAL STORY 1/2/16 6.05pm:
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Japanese toymaker ThreeZero is producing a Fallout 4 figurine so extravagantly detailed that it costs nearly $400.
Earlier this week you might have seen Wes' post about hitting a potentially game-breaking bug after 91 hours spent playing Fallout 4.
Fallout 4 player Jug is one dedicated virtual architect as he managed to create one of Fallout 4's most impressive structures - both the exterior and interior - without the aid of mods or console commands.
Fallout 4's perk system is one of the more divisive features in the game. Some enjoy its simplicity and the sheer number of perks available. Others - typically fans of Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas - lament the lack of traits, cool modifiers that would change your characters statistics in meaningful ways in previous Fallout games.
I need to break Fallout 4 to finish it.
Fallout 4's hilarious headless glitch has been addressed on PC in the latest 1.3 beta update.
As detailed on the Bethesda forums, this latest update has "fixed issue with player becoming dismembered while still alive."
There are some other amusing repairs as well, like repairing "an issue where Vault 81 residents would not dismember correctly."
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Video game heroes and heroines don't die - they're forgotten. For every conquering protagonist there's a handful of leads who never made it to the credits roll, never weighed a civilisation's fate in the scales. Instead, these characters are left to languish on a save file for months and years as feckless players drift to other releases, their skill trees mere sprouts in the dirt, unfinished plot arcs jutting over a wilderness of backstory. Like ghosts in need of exorcism, they haunt the dreams of their owners. No, Shepard, no! I never meant to abandon you on the Moon. It was Cerberus, I swear. Cerberus put that complete Dawn of War collection in my hands. Cerberus hid the controller charger under the sofa.
Fallout 4's day / night cycle sees the Commonwealth go from night to bright and back again, but the Wasteland itself remains constant.
Fallout 4 has been out for a few months now, but players brave enough to suffer through the unintuitive base-building continue to create impressive settlements. Now, a dedicated Fallout 4 tinkerer has put the flying city of Columbia in the skies above the Commonwealth.
Back in 2013 modder trainwiz perverted Skyrim by replacing its dragons with terrifying renditions of Thomas the Tank Engine. Now they're back and they've taken to Fallout 4's Commonwealth.
Back in 2012 modder FancyPants created the beloved Macho Dragon Mod for Skyrim, converting the scaly, fire-breathing beasts into a reptilian rendition of legendary WWE wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage.
The nice thing about running the Eurogamer YouTube channel is that we can get away with doing game of the year a little differently. Eschewing the voting process whereby one game is selected (and thereby ensuring we don't end up murdering one another), each member of the video team has made a video about their personal game of 2015.
Even at a meagre 512MB, Fallout 4's new patch has a surprising impact on the console experience - restoring a good chunk of its 30fps performance in places, while other spots still don't flatter. As covered in our initial PlayStation 4 test of the Corvega factory, update 1.02 ratchets up the frame-rate for one of the game's most taxing sequences. But going beyond the factory walls on PS4, just how far-spread are its benefits, truly? And do similar tests on a fully patched Xbox One bear out similar gains?
To start, the good news is PS4's improvements aren't limited to one targeted section, but rather, the game at large is now better optimised for Sony's machine. In particular, any combat that puts a strain on PS4's memory bandwidth - via the usual flurry of effects-work - now gets a marked boost on patch 1.02. The gains are remarkable in one early Deathclaw battle for example, going from lengthy lulls at 25fps and under when using the mini-gun on nearby sandbags, to a practically faultless 30fps with the update.
As the PS4's version's primary weakness at launch - particularly in comparison to Xbox One's 30fps delivery in this scene - the frame-rate boost in battles is a big deal. Drops are still an issue of course, and an encounter with Paladin Danse outside the Cambridge police station has PS4 and Xbox One dropping under 30fps. However, it's a clear benefit for PS4 compared to the launch day's patch's mid-20fps delivery. And between the two fully-patched versions, frame-rates are now equal, or in several cases during the Corvega section, much smoother on PS4 in identical tests.
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Fallout 4's latest patch 1.02 has fixed the much celebrated infinite caps glitch.
According to a variety of players on Reddit, Gamefaqs and Steam, the glitch that allowed players to buy, sell, dupe, and sell in perpetuity no longer works on any platform.
The 1.02 patch also boosts performance on PS4, as Digital Foundry has discovered.
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YouTuber Many A True Nerd has completed Fallout 3 on Hard Mode without ever healing and implementing a self-imposed permadeath ruleset.
Bethesda Game Studios, the developer of Fallout 4 and the Elder Scrolls series, has opened a new studio in Montreal.
Fallout 4's patch 1.02 went live last night, a 512MB file that puts to rights some of the game's outstanding issues on PS4. Stability issues, glitches and areas of performance are in the crosshairs this time - while Xbox One's patch is still pending. Based on its update notes, Bethesda singles out the Corvega factory as a focal area of gain on PS4 - a nightmare to play in its launch state, with drops to 20fps and under on the console. Thankfully, we have some good news on this front.
Starting at its sewers and working up to the rooftops, Bethesda delivers a notable boost in Corvega's overall performance level compared to the day one patch. Across the breadth of our video below, a run of this area puts us at a fixed 30fps in places where the older version dwelled in the mid-20s. It's a night and day difference at points. It's a handsome boost then - but it must be stressed that we're still in the process of determining whether this improvement reflects the game's other stress-points on PS4 - such as effects-heavy battles.
As things stand, the improvement is clearly tangible, even if the frame-rate still isn't 100 per cent ideal. A flat reading at around 20fps creeps in once we trigger explosives in the sewers, while the high-rises of the factory plant still take a toll on PS4's frame-rate. An overview of Lexington prompts a similar lengthy drop, but patch 1.02's overall reading is indeed higher in each scenario.
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Fallout 4 modder Cosmic Contrarian likes to create ridiculously epic NPC battles pitting thousands of characters against one another. The modder previously pitted 10k ghouls against 300 Super Mutants and 2k Mirelurks against 100 Minutemen. Now he's created his most gargantuan battle yet with 100 Brotherhood of Steel Soldiers facing off against a wave of 30k Deathclaws storming their homebase at the Cambridge Police Station.
Bethesda has a thing for skeletons, and so do I.
Fallout 4 does a great job of immersing you in Bethesda's post-nuclear Commonwealth, but pretty much everyone agrees it does a horrible job of explaining how base-building works.
Fallout 4's first PC patch is out today in the form of beta update 1.2.33.
As detailed on Steam, it contains the following new features and fixes:
New Features:
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Fallout 4 players are using console commands and mods to uncover cool secrets about the post-apocalyptic role-playing game.
Salutations, Eurogamers. Another week, another seven days spent mooching around in Fallout 4's expansive nuclear wasteland. That towering pile of dishes in the sink will eventually biodegrade or something, right?
Fallout 4 base building isn't for me, despite some advanced tips from Eurogamer's Ian Higton. I've left Sanctuary a poor, dribbling mess of burnt-out houses and bare-bones streets. But Fallout 4 is base building for some people. These people.
Fallout 4 developer Bethesda has offered a cursory overview of its plans to fix the post-apocalyptic open-world game's myriad of glitches.
"It's true that the freedom our games offer you can lead to unintentional consequences that are sometimes bad, when the game combines too many unexpected elements at once," the developer stated on its official blog. "We're happy that Fallout 4 is our most robust and solid release ever, and we'd like to thank our amazing QA staff who worked as hard as anyone to break the game so we could fix it during development. But a hundred testers will never replicate the many millions playing the game now, and we're hard at work addressing the top issues."
"Our process for updating the game will include releasing a beta patch on Steam, followed by full release on PC, then release on the consoles," Bethesda explained. "This process has worked well for us in the past and allows us to get more fixes out faster."
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Fallout 4's been out for over a week now, and so I imagine more than a few of you have dabbled in the post-apocalyptic role-playing game's base building feature.
For Fallout 4, developer Bethesda added player character voice acting. Cool! For some, though, there's a downside: you're never sure what your character will actually say.
Well then! Yesterday's article on Fallout 4 encumbrance sparked an interesting debate, didn't it? After over 300 comments on Eurogamer, a decent-sized thread on NeoGAF, and loads of tweets and Facebook posts, it's clear to me I picked up on an issue lots of Fallout players had an opinion on.
With Fallout 4 on shelves and thousands of special editions out in the wild, it's a safe bet at least one person is playing through the entire game with a plastic Pip-Boy on their arm. But how does the Pip-Boy stack up in the real world? Is it actually useful for your everyday wasteland explorer? Because I am a committed idiot, I decided to find out, wearing the Pip-Boy for a whole week. Here's how I got on.
A friend of mine visited over the weekend. He'd never played any of the Fallout games, nor had he played any of the Elder Scrolls games. But he'd seen adverts for Fallout 4 and asked me to show it to him. So on went the PlayStation 4 and on went Fallout 4.
There's no surprises as to this week's UK chart number one: Fallout 4 has claimed the crown with ease - no need to Pip-boy anyone to the post.
Fallout 4's launch sales were 213 per cent higher than 2010's Fallout: New Vegas, UK numbers company Chart-Track reported.
Bethesda has yet to reveal actual sales, but the publisher has said it shipped 12m copes of the game in readiness for launch.
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Fallout 4 is a game at odds with itself; an arresting open-world adventure with a staggering number of moving parts, but also one where its engine trembles under its demands. Having picked apart all three versions at length, it's fair to say PlayStation 4 and Xbox One each have unshakeable performance issues that can't be ignored. However, in visual terms they fall very close to one another - and at its top settings, PC adds some interesting touches over the console experience.
Let's rattle off the basics first: the 1920x1080 checkbox is readily ticked for both consoles, and pixel-counting gives us the precise same return. It's a state of affairs that perhaps points to Xbox One as the focus for Bethesda at the start of Fallout 4's development, and visuals are almost entirely matched with PS4. We have an accomplished implementation of temporal anti-aliasing on each console too, while texture map quality, shadows and even the quality of specular mapping in rain are a direct match.
Introducing PC at ultra settings is very revealing here, and shows just how much PS4 and Xbox One retain on balance. As tested on the latest patch, 1.01, on each version, the good news for console owners is that you're getting the maximum quality in textures, alpha effects and geometry across the game. PC's take on this post-apocalyptic Boston setting is identical in its building blocks. To an extent, this might frustrate those looking to squeeze a radically overhauled visual setup on PC - but there remain three main areas of improvement.
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UPDATE 16/11/15 12:15pm: There's some confusion about the status of Fallout 3 as an Xbox One pre-order bonus, and also the question of whether the code will expire or not. We've looked into this and can confirm the following: first of all, every copy of Fallout 4 available now includes the Fallout 3 code, and this situation is the case in every copy in every territory. This will be included with all copies of the game shipped in the first 90 days of its launch. Additionally, the code will not expire 90 days after launch - once you have the code, you can redeem it at any time. And finally, any initial stock that originally contained the Fallout 3 code will still have it once the 90 day period is over - it won't be withdrawn. Hopefully that clears everything up!
Fallout 4 has been out for less than a week but modders are already hard at work churning out add-ons that'll alter and in many cases improve your adventures in post-nuclear Boston.
Bethesda has trumpeted the launch of Fallout 4 - but failed to specify how many copies it's sold.
What it did say is the post-apocalyptic role-playing game launched with a whopping 12m copies shipped worldwide to meet day-one demand. That represents a huge $750m in revenue.
That figure, though, doesn't represent actual sales of the game to customers. But given Bethesda was confident enough to set aside 12m units for launch, there's no doubt Fallout 4 sold extremely well.
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Fallout 4 players have discovered a way to get as many bottle caps - the in-game currency - as they want.
Fallout 4 differs from previous games in the post-apocalyptic series in that it lets you build bases. But the way the game introduces this eye-catching feature to the player can be a tad overwhelming - and confusing.
There are 924 player names that Fallout 4 robot buddy Codsworth can pronounce although it won't say Louise, oddly enough.
We've seen people asking why Fallout 4 can take a while to install on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
UPDATE 1.10PM: GAME has issued a statement apologising for the continued wait for some Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition customers, and warned of a "short delay" before all orders find their rightful owners.
There's mention, too, of the reason that orders failed - due to banks and PayPal accounts not accepting payment to be taken, despite many customers insisting that their details had not changed.
Here's the statement in full:
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Yesterday we reported on Fallout 4 console performance, finding that both PS4 and Xbox One target 1080p30 gameplay - with somewhat variable results. Both versions have issues maintaining their frame-rate targets, but it's the Xbox One version that has a tangible disadvantage - there's a 'macro-stutter' issue that seems to be related to the game's background streaming technology. Entering new areas can see second-long pauses, and even switching weapons sometimes causes problems.
Fallout 4 contains a hidden mini-game about a half-hour into the campaign that pays homage to an old arcade classic.
Fallout 4 doesn't go on sale until midnight tonight, but you can already pay a high price for the £99 Pip-Boy Edition on eBay.
Your reaction to Fallout 4 will depend greatly on your expectations. If you're a fan of the series - or at least Bethesda's rebooted first-person take on it - then you'll find everything you wanted, and more. If you despair of Bethesda's creaking game engine, with its frequent glitches, stutters and occasional fatal crashes, then you'll also find everything you feared.
Fallout 4
Publisher: Bethesda
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Well, the floodgates are officially open and hours upon hours of Fallout 4 footage is right now spilling onto every square inch of the internet. Be careful out there, friends.
UPDATE 13/5/15 11:40am: Since our initial analysis, we've put more time into Fallout 4, and we've been able to isolate a number of spots that really challenge the engine. In particular the Corvega factory is a rough spot, and PS4 takes the brunt of the hit once we reach its rooftops (down to 15fps). Both machines also suffer long drops to 20fps in certain interior battles. Time will tell just how far-reaching these trouble spots are throughout the game, particularly once more hours tally up. In the meantime, we'll update soon with a full Face-Off, taking a deeper dive into the specific ins and outs of each platform.
Original story: Four years on from its predecessor, Bethesda emerges from the vault with the hugely anticipated Fallout 4 - adding new technologies to its Creation Engine on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Equipped with an improved physically-based lighting model, it's confirmed the game's development process began with the team porting its earlier work to Xbox One first. However, optimising for both platforms has evidently proven tricky since, and on analysing the reality of each console's frame-rate at launch, the results are something of a mixed bag.
First up though, we can confirm PS4 and Xbox One render at a native 1080p resolution, with no compromise in either case. It gives us a sharp base image, and in presenting a post-apocalyptic world that sprawls out for virtual miles in each direction, it pays off hugely in keeping the image sharp on views across the wasteland. It's a surprise for Microsoft's machine too, with its previous history of cutting back on resolution in similar open world games. But here, both consoles give a matching, full HD presentation, also using a temporal anti-aliasing pass to minimise shimmer on panning shots.
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If you want to survive the post-war devastation of Fallout 4, you need to set aside naive pre-war notions such as non-violence, bathing and not drinking radioactive soft drinks.
Those with an Xbox One digital pre-order for Fallout 4 may need to redownload the game before being able to play.
UPDATE 9/11/15 10.45am: Less than 24 hours from launch and some GAME customers are still waiting to hear if they will receive their £99 Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition, following the retailer's order errors last week.
Many GAME customers were notified via email early last Friday morning that their payment method had failed for their Pip-Boy Edition orders - but it was actually GAME's system at fault.
A second email was then sent to customers, after many had spent hours on the phone to customer service trying to find out what had happened. This new message, distributed around 6pm, explained that customers still wishing to keep their order would need to reply and provide a phone number for GAME to contact them over the weekend.
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Just days away from Fallout 4's release, publisher Bethesda has finally revealed a little more of the game's story.
The launch trailer below may give away more than you'd care to find out - so exercise caution if you want to go in completely blind.
For those that do want their best tease yet of the game's post-apocalyptic Boston then there are mentions of the game's various factions, including one that may be the game's main antagonists. Or is everything not quite as it seems?
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When Skyrim launched just shy of four years ago, it attracted a lot of people who had never touched an Elder Scrolls game before. I was one of them, in fact. Given the amount of muscle Bethesda has thrown into the marketing, it's highly likely Fallout 4 will do the same.
Bethesda has released its Fallout Pip-Boy app to the App Store and Google Play.
Here's a video game cross-brand promotion we didn't expect: Fallout cars in Forza.
Bethesda has released over 60 Fallout-themed emoji in a new free app for iOS and Android called Fallout C.H.A.T. (Short for Communications Hub and Transmitter.)
A flurry of leaked Fallout 4 gameplay videos have hit the net, giving us our first proper look at all the perks available in the game. New perks have been singled out on Reddit and added to the full list on the Fallout Wiki.
Fallout 4 gameplay has hit the internet over a week before the game launches.
Links to four videos, hosted on vid.me, were published to pastebin. At the time of publication they're all online. It looks like they're captured from the Xbox One version.
The videos contain spoilers, as you'd expect. So if you plan to hit Fallout 4 fresh when it comes out officially on Tuesday, 10th November, it's probably best not to watch.
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Look, there's no way to say this without sounding horribly smug so I apologise in advance, but we've got a Fallout 4 Pip-Boy edition.
It's Friday! What does that mean? It means we bring you word that there's real life Fallout Nuka-Cola Quantum.
With Fallout 4 due out in a couple of weeks, millions of people are set to leap into the post-apocalyptic open world Bethesda has spent the last few years crafting.
Achievement and Trophy tracking website Exophase has today posted the full award list for Fallout 4. There are 51 trophies in total, and while many are self-explanatory, there are a select few that invite speculation and point towards potential story arcs.
Hello again Eurogamers. It's the week before Halloween, which apparently means it's still unacceptable as a grown adult to wander the streets dressed as a zombie and gorge yourself on sweets. Oh when will the waiting end?
Fallout is getting its own officially licensed beer via a collaboration between Bethesda and Carlsberg UK.
Dota 2 will receive a Fallout 4 crossover in the form of an Announcer Pack staring three-armed floating service bot Mr. Handy.
Purchasing Fallout 4 on Steam will give players access to the upcoming Announcer Pack, due mid-November.
Publisher Bethesda noted that this bonus is a "limited time offer," but no details are given regarding when it will expire.
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Bethesda is selling an exclusive Fallout 4 controller officially licensed by Microsoft.
What would a Fallout film look like? Maybe it would look like this.
Ahead of the release of Fallout 4 on 10th November, Bethesda has released a cool live-action trailer that shows off the game's post-apocalyptic wasteland as if it were made for a movie.
The trailer begins before the bombs fall, but it's not long before the Sole Survivor emerges from Vault 111 and explores the wasteland. We see robot assistant Mr. Handy, your companion Dogmeat, as well as a nice bit of Power Armour.
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Fallout 4 has slightly strange but achievable system requirements on PC, and occupies between 28-35GB hard-drive space on consoles. I say "slightly strange" as the recommended specs ask for a powerful processor and graphics card but are relatively easy on the RAM. Does it really need all that processing power? We'll see, I suppose!
Microsoft has a number of Xbox One bundles up its sleeve as it prepares for the crucial Christmas 2015 shopping spree.
Fallout 4 won't have platform exclusive downloadable add-ons, Bethesda has confirmed.
Responding to a question on Twitter, Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines said the company hadn't done any DLC exclusive deals.
This marks a shift for Fallout. Fallout 3's DLC add-ons were originally exclusive to Xbox 360 and Games for Windows, and later released on PlayStation 3.
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Fallout 4's character system makes important changes to the way perks work in the game.
Inon Zur, composer of all of the Fallout games since Fallout Tactics, has worked his magic for Fallout 4, and Bethesda has a released a video showing him playing the game's main theme on piano.
Apparently concerned that the world is not nearly excited enough for its upcoming quirky indie game Fallout 4, Bethesda has launched a new web series based around the post-apocalyptic RPG's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats system.
Bethesda has said the Fallout 4 Season Pass will cost $30 (around £20) and those who buy it will get all of the Fallout 4 DLC the developer ever creates.
There's a Fallout Monopoly set in the works.
Fallout is now a first-person - or third-person, if you fancy it - video game. But it wasn't always so. The post-apocalyptic role-playing series began life with an isometric viewpoint, a visual style now considered oldschool.
Fallout 4 is breaking series tradition by omitting a level cap, developer Bethesda has revealed.
Gamescom is a beautiful, hot, noisy mess of a show and an utter delight to visit. Sadly, not everyone can go - and this year, that includes me. But thankfully, we packed Chris Bratt off to tour the show with a camera in hand to capture just what attending the world's biggest gaming show is like.
Ahoo, and a lovely warm welcome from Eurogamer's Gamescom team at the end of the first day proper of Europe's biggest gaming show. Chris, Bertie, Ian and Martin delayed their trip to the beer halls of Cologne just long enough to bring you impressions of all they saw out on the show floor, and took a little time to relay the highlights. There's Star Citizen, Scalebound, Fallout and some of that esoteric PC stuff that Chris loves so much. We'll be back tomorrow for another episode, though we'd better be careful - any more and we're in danger of making this podcast thing a habit.
Fallout 4's £100 Pip-Boy Edition may be sold out everywhere and Bethesda has been clear that it can't make more, but there is another way. Gamer and 3D printing enthusiast Yvo de Haas has released a schematic for how one can print a Pip-Boy 3000 Mark IV.
Memorabilia-crafting company Loot Crate has teamed up with Bethesda to create a Limited Edition goodies collection based around Fallout 4.
Fallout 4's Pip-Boy accessory in its Collector's Edition has been such a sought after item, publisher Bethesda has admitted it simply cannot produce any more of them due to the manufacturer being too busy to make further stock.
The Fallout Anthology has just been announced, grouping five beloved post-apocalyptic RPGs together for the first time.
At E3 last month, publisher Bethesda announced the Xbox One version of post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout 4 would include a token to download Fallout 3 for free, but it would only be redeemable 90 days after Fallout 4's 10th November release.
Fallout Shelter has introduced its first character from the upcoming Fallout 4.
Super-sized smartphones, such as the iPhone 6 Plus, are too big for the wearable plastic Pip-Boy that comes with the £99.99 Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition.
The actors who will voice the male and female protagonists of Fallout 4 have been revealed.
UPDATE: Bethesda has clarified that, as expected, Fallout 4 will run 1080p30 on consoles but be unrestricted on PC.
ORIGINAL STORY: Fallout 4 will run at 1080p30 "on everything", game director Todd Howard has said - presumably referring to PS4 and Xbox One versions, not PC.
The resolution and frame-rate he confirmed to Digital Spy at E3.
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UPDATE 25/06/2015 5.49pm: Bethesda has accepted Seth's bottle caps as legal tender to pre-order Fallout 4, but only because he was the first to do this. So don't go out getting smashed and sending Bethesda your caps in hopes of attaining its highly anticipated sequel.
Bethesda Game Studios has revealed that the dog in Fallout 4 cannot die.
UPDATE: Bethesda Game Studios chief Todd Howard has said the PlayStation 4 version of Fallout 4 will, like the Xbox One version, support mods made with the PC version.
Aoife, Johnny, Oli and Tom are all over in Los Angeles right now, taking in all the delights of E3 which kicked off in earnest last night with Bethesda's conference. There was Fallout - lots and lots of it - plus a proper look at Doom and the pleasant surprise of a Dishonored 2 announce. Oh, and something about Battlecry too, if that's your thing.
Last night, at the end of its E3 press conference, Bethesda gave attendees a pack of three Funko Mystery Minis vinyl figures for free - one each for Doom (demon), Dishonored (Emily Kaldwin) and Fallout (Power Armour).
More E3 bulletins: Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday
UPDATE 3rd July 13.55: After this morning's kerfuffle, you can now put your name down for a Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition at GAME.co.uk.
Todd Howard, game director of Bethesda Game Studios, took to the stage at E3 to show off Fallout 4 gameplay.
BGS, Howard said, started work on Fallout 4 in 2009 after wrapping up Fallout 3.
The game begins before the bombs fall in Fallout's post-apocalyptic world, on a Saturday morning.
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Fallout 4 is out 10th November 2015, Bethesda has announced, on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Greetings, Eurogamers! You may be in the process of constructing an E3 blanket fort from which to judge the various game reveals, but if you can spare a moment we have some videos to ease you into the expo onslaught.
By the time this article goes live, my journey to E3 with Aoife, Tom and Oli will be underway. A frenzy of writing, filming, coffee drinking and very little sleep awaits, and I couldn't be more excited. There's so much to look forward to already but, if there's one thing E3 is good for, it's producing the odd surprise.
Fallout! Doom! Some other stuff? FALLOUT!
Bethesda will not release a pared-back version of Fallout 4 for PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. Not at launch, or ever.
What a week! Between Lego Worlds, XCOM 2 and Fallout 4, it's been game announcement crazy - not to mention Ark: Survival Evolved rampaging its way onto Steam Early Access.
We've just received a bunch of high-res screenshots taken from this week's Fallout 4 reveal and thought we'd share them below for your viewing pleasure.
Fallout 4 was officially announced by Bethesda yesterday and, like most of the internet, I was rather excited by the trailer. There's a dog. What more do we need, really?
Anyway, in all the hubbub it's easy to overlook a couple of little bits and pieces in the reveal trailer, so I did some digging online and rounded up the more interesting theories and hidden clues for your edification. Just what is up with Vault 111? Where on the timeline are we? And could the game feature an in-depth crafting mechanic?
Got a theory of your own? Something I missed? Leave a comment and let me know. I'll be just over here, listening to The Ink Spots.
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There's much speculation that Fallout 4, revealed yesterday, will be released this year.
UPDATE 15.00 03/06/2015: The first Fallout 4 trailer has been released. Watch it below.
After years of waiting and false hopes, Bethesda has finally announced Fallout 4. It's as good an excuse as any to take a trip through time to where it all began, in a very different kind, but now much more familiar kind of Wasteland. This was back in 1988, on technology so primitive that most of the original's game text had to be printed in a manual, with the game simply giving a number to look up every time anything happened. Nevertheless, it found almost instant critical and commercial success... and immense difficulty getting a sequel off the ground. At least, an official one.
