While several recent rumors have indicated that a remaster of Fallout 3 might be in the works, Bethesda Game Studios lead Todd Howard has revealed that his stance on the concept of remasters has softened over the years. In an interview with GamesRadar, he spoke about how he used to be quite against the idea. “For a long time I was a no, no, no,” he said. “That is a game of its age, let’s just make sure it runs.” Since then, however, he has “warmed up on remasters”.
He also praised the work that went into the backwards compatibility features of modern Xbox consoles, especially when it came to running titles like the original Xbox’s The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and Xbox 360’s Fallout 3. “They did an incredible job with backwards compatibility,” he said. “Right now you can go and play the original Oblivion, you can play Morrowind, you can play Fallout 3. It’s backwards compatible, it’s 4k, and like, great.”
“So that to me, was like, job number one – can you play them as they were?”
He also revealed that work on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered because the idea of remastering older Bethesda games “kept coming up.” The fact that there hadn’t been a new mainline entry in the fantasy RPG franchise since 2011’s The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim also likely proved to be enough motivation.
“Feeling like this also serves the Elder Scrolls audience that we hadn’t had this, this is good for that audience, and having a single player game and kind of this pocket of time. But there’s a million ways that that could have gone wrong,” he said.
As for the Fallout franchise, a report from last month has indicated that the team working on Fallout 3‘s remaster is aiming for a similar level of polish and quality as The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. “The game is still in active development, and I understand Bethesda is keen to ensure it’s as well polished as the surprise release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered last year,” wrote The Verge’s Tom Warren.
More recent reports have been adding more fuel to the fire when it comes to a remaster of Fallout 3. Earlier this month, a listing for new McFarlane toys indicated that an “Elite Edition” for Fallout 3 Remastered was planned. This edition would include a 7-inch tall “T-45B Nuka Cola”. While not too many details were revealed, the name indicates that it might be a figure of power armor featuring a color palette akin to the in-game Nuka Cola brand.
Interestingly, a remaster of Fallout 3 might involve more work than previously thought. Former Bethesda developer Bruce Nesmith spoke about this back in April 2025, noting that the project would require major revamp of the RPG’s gun-based combat. He referred to Fallout 3‘s gun combat as being “not good,” especially when compared to its contemporaries.
“[Fallout 3 combat] didn’t hold up to shooters at the time,” Nesmith explained. “Also, it’s an RPG shooter, it’s not a run-and-gun shooter. But a lot of work was done on that for Fallout 4. So I anticipate seeing a lot of that work go into it, assuming they’re doing the same thing.”