Fallout 3

Fallout 3

Released: October 28, 2008
Type: Main Game

Platforms:

PlayStation 3 PC (Microsoft Windows) Xbox 360

Genres:

Shooter Role-playing (RPG)

Game Modes:

Single player

Themes:

Action Science fiction Survival Stealth Sandbox Open world

Player Perspectives:

First person Third person

Ratings

User Rating

83.5
Based on 1630 ratings

Critics Rating

89.1
Based on 10 ratings

Total Rating

86.3
Based on 1640 ratings

Summary

Fallout 3 from the creators of the award-winning Oblivion, featuring one of the most realized game worlds ever created. Create any kind of character you want and explore the open wastes of post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. Every minute is a fight for survival as you encounter Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders and other dangers of the Wasteland. Prepare for the future.

The third game in the Fallout series, Fallout 3 is a singleplayer action role-playing game (RPG) set in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC. Combining the horrific insanity of the Cold War era theory of mutually assured destruction gone terribly wrong, with the kitschy naivety of American 1950s nuclear propaganda, Fallout 3 will satisfy both players familiar with the popular first two games in its series as well as those coming to the franchise for the first time.

Storyline

The introductory sequence introduces the player to their character's father James, a doctor and scientist in Vault 101. James frequently makes comments about the player character's deceased mother Catherine, and her favorite Bible passage, Revelation 21:6, which speaks of "the waters of life".

The main quest begins after the player is forced to flee Vault 101 when James leaves the vault, throwing it into anarchy and causing the paranoid Overseer to send his security force after the player. The search for James takes the character on a journey through the Wasteland, first to the nearby town of Megaton, named for the undetonated atomic bomb at the center of town, then the Galaxy News Radio station, whose enthusiastic DJ Three Dog gives the player the moniker of "The Lone Wanderer". The player travels to Rivet City, a derelict aircraft carrier now serving as a fortified human settlement. Here the player meets Doctor Li, a scientist who worked alongside the player's father. Doctor Li informs the player of Project Purity, a plan conceived by Catherine and James to purify all the water in the Tidal Basin and eventually the entire Potomac River with a giant water purifier built in the Jefferson Memorial. However, continued delays and Catherine's death during childbirth put an end to the project, and James took the player's character as a newborn to raise them in the safety of Vault 101.

After investigating the Jefferson Memorial, the Lone Wanderer tracks James to Vault 112, and frees him from a virtual reality program being run by the Vault's sadistic Overseer, Dr. Braun. James and the player return to Rivet City, and James reveals he sought out Braun for information on the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.), a device that contains the components needed to finally activate Project Purity. James and Doctor Li lead a team of Rivet City scientists to the memorial with intent to restart the project, but the memorial is invaded by the Enclave, a powerful military organization formed from the remnants of the pre-War United States government. James floods the project's control room with radiation to stop the Enclave military leader, Colonel Augustus Autumn, from taking control of it, killing himself (but Autumn survives), his last words urging his child to run. The Lone Wanderer and Dr. Li flee to the ruins of the Pentagon, now a base for the Brotherhood of Steel and now known as the Citadel.

With Project Purity still inoperable even with the Enclave occupying the site, the player travels to Vault 87 to find a G.E.C.K. and finish James's work. The player finds the Vault to be a testing site for the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus), and the source of the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland. After the player acquires the G.E.C.K., the Wanderer is ambushed by the Enclave and captured.

At the Enclave base at Raven Rock, the player is freed from their cell by the Enclave leader, President John Henry Eden, who requests a private audience with them. En route to his office however, Colonel Autumn defies Eden's orders and takes command of the Enclave military, ordering them to kill the player. Fighting their way to Eden's office, the player discovers Eden is actually a sentient ZAX series supercomputer who took control of the Enclave after their defeat in Fallout 2 on the West Coast thirty years ago. Eden wishes to repeat the plan of then-President Dick Richardson using Project Purity, infecting the water with a modified strain of FEV that will make it toxic to any mutated life. This plan will kill most life in the wasteland including humans, but the Enclave, due to their genetic "purity" as a result of their isolation, will be immune and free to take control of the area. The Wanderer, provided with a sample of the new F.E.V., is given a choice to either leave peacefully or convince Eden to self-destruct the entire base. The Lone Wanderer escapes Raven Rock and returns to the Citadel.

With the knowledge they possess, the G.E.C.K. and the means to activate Project Purity, the Brotherhood assault the Jefferson Memorial, spearheaded by a giant robot named Liberty Prime. In the control room of Project Purity the player confronts Colonel Autumn, and has the choice to persuade him to give up or kill him. Dr. Li informs the player that the purifier is ready to be activated, but the activation code must be input manually, and also that the control room is flooded with lethal amounts of radiation. The Lone Wanderer is forced to choose between sending Sarah Lyons of the Brotherhood inside the extremely irradiated purifier or entering themselves. Whoever enters into the chamber inputs the code hinted at through the game, that being 21:6, and dies from a radiation spike.

Screenshots

Involved Companies

Bethesda Game Studios

Role:
Developer

Bethesda Softworks

Role:
Publisher

Game Engines

Gamebryo

Keywords

aliens cold war baseball motorcycle basketball hunting post-apocalyptic cybernetics bloody ninja time travel vampire murder drugs minigames invasion ants dystopian death military robots alternate history doctor virtual pet female protagonist hand-to-hand combat insanity cyborg steam bird backtracking achievements bullet time multiple endings apocalypse mutants traps building hacking artificial intelligence dialogue trees satire united states revenge wolf dark humor torture camera slavery racism dog over the shoulder terraforming sequel giant insects mad scientist chemistry good vs evil swimming hide and seek day/night cycle airplane boss fight explosion radiation power glove xbox controller support for pc single-player only throwing weapons game critics awards playstation trophies attributes rivaling factions customizable characters leveling up world map voice acting cow bink video mind control human xbox one x enhanced polygonal 3d shopping skill points in game loot gathering microtransaction love triangle game reference rat licensed soundtrack collectibles sequel is in a different genre original soundtrack release wasd movement white noise non-player character extreme violence profanity hologram descendants of other characters fake in-game advertising corpse tape recorder young protagonist sniping ice stage escort mission falling damage character creation moral decisions side quests pick your gender branching storyline recruitable characters using dialogue to avoid combat downloadable content questing melee auto-saving real-time combat a.i. companion male antagonist retro future stat tracking instant kill secret area betrayal vision obstruction animal companions difficulty level shaky camera jump scare moment quicksaving subtitled silence multiple gameplay perspectives liberation audio logs vending machine interaction mercenary coming of age combat dialogue falling sequence video game characters that play video games christianity banned in-game radio presidential candidate communism rebels bribery scientist nuclear bomb addiction theft sequence breaking non-linear storytelling interactive environments dart been here before level cap xbox one backwards compatibility development hell invisible wall gamersgate sleeping item combination hotkey controversy hallucination games on demand never-ending chessboard mod support high definition graphics dolby digital plot twist valuable garbage stealth kill guns and bullets pausable real time combat poverty quest tracking meme origin cannibalism animal cruelty enemy tagging motorcycle helmet weapon workshops gore system environmental kill psychopathy heterochromia poisoning invisibility scripted events random encounter fire manipulation zero to hero pickpocketing lock picking propaganda workbench mechanics waking up captured severed limbs fast traveling censored version genocide chinese accent missing relative context sensitive living inventory cockroach nameless protagonist outside of the map anarchism sociopathy vigilante ghoul fully customizable controls retrievable traps trilogy movement penalty two-handed weapons sealing your own fate hidden room pseudo non-linear sex work bartender a.i. construct sequel by a different developer insect infestation fictional currencies boar ghostly manifestation redemption biblical quotes ending change post-release warping heroic sacrifice missile launcher nuclear war nuclear holocaust hostile a.i. nuclear fallout world war iii reluctant hero adamantium greatest hits machinima stealth camouflage level scaling monomyth pc to console port taste of power animal sidekick nomads kill quest aberrant a.i. behaviour missing features achievement hitching multi-monitor support games for windows - live uncanny valley neutral memorial pax 2008 roaming the countryside tokyo game show 2008 securom interactive achievement awards 2009 spike video game awards 2008 game developers choice awards 2009 immersive lgbtq+ male protagonist interior design maryland

Alternative Names

FO3

Frequently Asked Questions

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