Eurogamer

"One of my boring, pointless hobbies is making lists, recently these lists have been timelines," Connor Rawlings begins a reddit post by stating.

"Thus I present perhaps the most in-depth timeline of the whole canon Fallout series."

That's a huge claim, but one which - somewhat incredibly - seems to be true.

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Fallout 3

It's easy to understand why brutalism has been such a potent source of architectural inspiration for games. The raw forms - solid, legible and with clear lineation - are the perfect material for level designers to craft their worlds with. Simultaneously, these same structures are able to ignite imaginations and gesture outwards, their dramatic shapes and monumental dimensions shocking and attention-seizing.

Brutalism is a branch of architecture that spans roughly 30 years (1950s-1970s). It was borne out of the devastation of two world wars, when there was a need to rebuild. In this aftermath brutalism became a vital global phenomenon. If you live in a city, you've no doubt passed by a hulking example.

The term derives from a French invention: b ton brut, meaning raw concrete. This is the structure's most prominent feature - sheer concrete surface, often left rough, exposed or unfinished. Significant in the emergence of brutalism was the architect Le Corbusier and his Unit d'Habitation. Built from reinforced concrete, the housing unit was an attempt to create what Le Corbusier called "a machine for living" - a place that met our every need. It was a thoroughly modern, progressive and even utopian conception of architecture. Regardless of the visual force of brutalism, it's impossible to divorce it from this socio-historical background.

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Fallout 3

It's fast approaching the 10-year anniversary of Fallout 3's release, and for half that time, one dedicated fan has been plugging away at a DLC-sized mod for the game. If that doesn't make you feel inadequate, I don't know what will.

Released yesterday, Washington's Malevolence is a quest mod which transports players to Maddox Island on a treasure hunt for the old Rocky Cape Bank - "a pre-war bank said to house untold riches". According to the project's NexusMods description, Washington's Malevolence allows players to "explore the island, visit several new locations, and meet different people from different backgrounds" who will "shape and mould the events that take place during the player's visit". To be honest, even this nuclear wasteland sounds like a far nicer place to visit than real-life Washington DC at the moment.

The project is the work of one-person modding team Garfield2004B, along with a cast of supporting voice actors. It sounds like a substantial creation, and judging by the gameplay trailer, seems like it's pretty well-written. Although not all the roles have been voiced, and the mod is non-canon (due to the release of Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 since development started), this fan-made creation is certainly a labour of love.

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Apr 18, 2018
Fallout 3

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 Brotherhood said nothing about the horrors inside.

Vault 11 is unusual in that when you first arrive its main door, the one with the number 11 on it, the one would normally hiss and creak before pulling back and rolling sideways, is open. Most of the vaults you encounter throughout the Fallout games are locked shut, which makes sense. The vaults were designed to keep nuclear fallout out and happy dwellers in. Why is Vault 11's door open now?

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Fallout 3


The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 3 developer Bethesda Game Studios is currently staffing up for a next-gen project.


A job listing on its recruitment site states that the developer "is looking for experienced programmers to work on cutting-edge technology for an unannounced game on future-generation consoles."


Among the preferred skills listed is experience working with DirectX 11, suggesting the latest iteration of the PC API will be the benchmark for next gen console visuals.


This tallies with comments made by a Crytek developer last summer:


"It's going to depend a lot on when Sony and Microsoft decide is the right moment to announce and launch things," said programmer Pete Hall, "but it does feel at the moment that the hardware we get in next generation consoles will be about the sort of level that DX11 is at - that's where it currently looks like it's going."

Fallout 3


Discounts on Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas DLC make up the third day of Microsoft's 12 days of Christmas promotion.


The following add-ons have been reduced down to 400 Points a piece, but hurry - the offer changes tomorrow morning:

Fallout 3:

  • Mothership Zeta
  • Operation Anchorage
  • Broken Steel

Fallout: New Vegas:

  • Honest Hearts
  • Lonesome Road
  • Dead Money
  • Old World Blues
Fallout 3


Polish political party Poland Comes First has produced a video undeniably inspired by Fallout.


The video begins with a close-up of an old television set, its screen showing black and white photos presumably of Polish politicians. The camera pulls slowly backwards. And through a space where a wall once stood, a post-apocalyptic cityscape with half-destroyed and charred skyscrapers is revealed. "Maybe", the 1940s song by The Ink Spots, plays in the background.

It's identical to the intro of Fallout 1, but with photo-shopped images on the television set.


Poland Comes First is a relatively liberal centre-right political party. Its focus is on speeding up economic reform. How will the promotional video go down with Bethesda?

The two videos are below.

Fallout 3


Bethesda reckons it's much better at squashing bugs in its open world games than it used to be - and it's getting better at it.


Bethesda's Fallout and Elder Scrolls games have a reputation for being buggy at launch, with some gamers complaining of system crashes and corrupted game saves.


The company has released a raft of patches and fixes for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas in an effort to combat these issues post launch.


With Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim fast approaching, Bethesda marketing boss Pete Hines told Eurogamer sister site GamesIndustry.biz the development team is working hard to make sure the fantasy epic is as free from bugs as possible.


"It's something we continue to try to address and design for," he said. "If you go back and look, Fallout 3 was an incredibly stable game. Certainly not bug-free, but there's a difference for us between a rock that's floating a little above the ground, which is technically a bug, and one you might have that causes your game to crash or your save-games to get corrupted.


"So there's degrees. We start at the top and work our way down. Does the game load when you click on it? Does it save properly? That stuff. So it's something we're cognisant of. I think for Skyrim we built a number of things into the game to cover that and to try to improve that."


Bethesda has a harder time with bugs than other game developers because of the size and scope of its games, Hines said.


"The truth of the matter is that it's far easier to bug-test and playtest a game that's very linear than one that's very open," he explained.


"It is a bigger undertaking to wrangle all of that and make sure you've squeezed out every possible thing, like, 'Oh, you've picked up this sword then talked to this person then gave them that, then this thing happens.' It is literally approaching infinite when you talk about all those possibilities."


Fallout: New Vegas, which launched in 2010, also suffered from bugs. The difference here, however, was that it was created by Obsidian, and independent developer.


According to Hines, the problems players saw with that game should not be repeated.


"I think we have and continue to get better at it. When you look at Fallout: New Vegas, it was not a Bethesda Game Studios title, it was different experience for those guys even though we worked with them on it, but I think Todd [Howard] and his team have continued, over the 12 years I've been here working with them, to make improvements, and I think they're in a good place with this."

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