From Interplay’s Fallout 1, 2 and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel to Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition, Fallout: New Vegas – Ultimate Edition, Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition and Fallout 76, it’s all here. Unfortunately, the anthology doesn’t come with any physical games. Instead, you get seven S.P.E.C.I.A.L. cards depicting the different stats and featuring PC codes for each title.

On the plus side, they come with a mini-nuke container (which audibly explodes) for collectors. So there’s that, and honestly, not much else.

The Fallout TV show’s first episode premieres on April 12th on Amazon Prime. In the gaming sphere, Fallout 76 is slated to receive new content this year – check out the roadmap here. Fallout 4 fans can also expect its next-gen update to arrive sometime this year, though further details have to be revealed.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The remaster will support up to 4K resolutions (on the hardware that permits it, obviously), full co-op support, four difficulty levels, full voice acting, and more. It’s also been confirmed to be fully optimized for the Steam Deck. Watch the remastered release’s release date trailer below.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 was originally released for PS2 and Xbox back in 2004. Developed by Black Isle Studios, the hack-and-slash action RPG took place in the Forgotten Realms setting and was based on the ruleset of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition.

While sporting the Baldur’s Gate name, Dark Alliance 2 was a spin-off following the success of BioWare’s Baldur’s Gate games. It takes place in the same area of Dungeons & Dragons‘ Forgotten Realms setting.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is an action-RPG, featuring gameplay similar to classic Diablo games. The remasters only support local co-op, so online multiplayer will only be possible through Steam’s Remote Play options.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 features over 80 levels, hundreds of items, plenty of magical weapons and armour, and full voice acting. According to the game’s Steam page, it also features two secret characters: Drizzt Do’Urden and Artemis Entreri—both popular characters from the Forgotten Realms setting.

In a new tweet, the developer stated that it’s “coming,” that too, “Sooner than you think.” Follow-up tweets indicated that it was coming to PC and consoles which includes Nintendo Switch. It won’t be coming out today but Black Isle will be announcing dates “that will hopefully make everyone very happy!”

Gameplay-wise, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is an isometric action RPG like its predecessor. There are five characters, each having their own unique class and abilities, along with support for local co-op. Along with leveling up and increasing core stats, players can also customize their own weapons and armor along with slotting runestones and gems for advantages. Stay tuned for more details on the re-release in the coming days.

https://twitter.com/BlackIsleStudio/status/1496183318613794821

I certainly wish that was the case!

But we're going to announce dates that will hopefully make everyone very happy!

— Black Isle Studios (@BlackIsleStudio) February 22, 2022

PC and consoles friend!

— Black Isle Studios (@BlackIsleStudio) February 22, 2022

Yes indeed!

— Black Isle Studios (@BlackIsleStudio) February 22, 2022

Of the many titles being remade and remastered, a re-release of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance came somewhat out of left field. The classic action RPG initially launched in 2001 and was thought to be lost to time. Nevertheless, it was re-released on May 7th for PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch with improved visuals and support for 4K.

The PC version is slated to arrive later this year on Steam but what about Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2? While Black Isle Studios didn’t outright confirm its release, it is “on the table.” Fans are advised to “stay tuned” for more details in the meantime.

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 released in 2004 for PS2 and Xbox, offering five new playable characters, custom weapon and armor creation, and a brand new story. Time will tell if it eventually gets a re-release but it would certainly be welcome. However, It’s unlikely that Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 3 ever gets made though especially with Larian Studios currently working on Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance on the way.

PC release is in the works right now. Hoping to have it on Steam this year.

And the sequel is on the table. Stay tuned!

— Black Isle Studios (@BlackIsleStudio) May 10, 2021

Well, I don’t think anyone saw this one coming. Interplay Entertainment and Black Isle Studios have announced that classic hack n’ slash RPG Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, which originally released on the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox, would be releasing for PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on May 7th (that’s tomorrow). The game’s existence was revealed by a PlayStation Store listing on May 5th. An official trailer was released today.

The game will retail for $29.99. PC and mobile versions will follow later this year. This version of the game will support enhanced graphics and up to 4K resolutions as well as local co-op. The game features 3 playable characters: a dwarven fighter (Kromlech), a human archer (Vahn), and an elven sorceress (Adrianna). Each comes with a wide variety of spells and abilities to upgrade.

This re-release is surprising, but welcome. Dark Alliance is a classic, and this re-release ensures that a new generation will be able to play and appreciate it. It’s a good time to be a Baldur’s Gate fan. Larian is working on Baldur’s Gate 3, though it may be a while before the game is out of Early Access. Meanwhile, Tuque Games is working on a spiritual successor, Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance, which is due out later this year.

You can watch a trailer for Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance below, courtesy of IGN.

"We simply love, love, love this style of game, from a simpler time."

With 20 years separating the release of Life of Crime and Reloaded, what led to the decision to bring the shooter back with an enhanced re-release?

3D Realms (3DR) was a major studio in the 90s in the emerging 3D shooter market. After seeing id Software’s early 3D engine based games, like Hover Tank and Catacombs, I pitched to them the idea of making a 3D shareware game in partnership with Apogee and for Apogee to publish. That game, Wolfenstien 3D, came out in 1992 and was a tremendous hit, and from that point onward the 3D cat was outta the bag and hasn’t stopped running and knocking things over yet!

So, 3DR, which I started as a label under Apogee in 1994, then went on to do Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood, Descent, Max Payne and Prey–all significant 3D games in their day.

Bottom-line, our history is rooted in this genre of games, and we are excited to return to it by recreating games in 90’s era engines (like Ion Fury and Wrath), as well as bring back actual 90’s era 3D games like Kingpin. We simply love, love, love this style of game, from a simpler time.

How much new content does Kingpin Reloaded add, in terms of gameplay hours?

We’re not sure if the initial release will add any new levels, so for now it will not add more gameplay hours. But we fully expect to add levels after the release.

Can you talk about Enhanced mode, and what sort of graphical improvements that brings to the table?

Our overall goal is to improve the game in nearly every respect. This means we’ll improve the texture quality/detail/resolution, improve the controls, the save system, the inventory system, the weapon effects, the audio, and add modern features like a wide range of screen sizes being supported.

What sort of quality of life improvements have you made to the game with Reloaded?

The controls will be nicely updated to modern standards, also the menus, the user interface, and a big one will be an inventory screen, which the original game sorely lacked.

"We’d love to see Kingpin continue as an ongoing series of games with a masterplan in place to introduce new key characters and create an interesting Kingpin storyverse that never has to end!"

Kingpin’s conversation system was quite a big deal back in the day, especially for an action-heavy first person shooter. What sort of improvements or changes does Reloaded make to that, if any?

You’re right that it was pretty innovative upon release. We’re looking at ways to improve it as with everything else.

You’ve talked about a new quest system being implemented in Kingpin Reloaded– can you talk to us a bit about what that entails and how it differs from the original game?

Sure, in the original, the only way you’d know what to do and where to do, was through your journal, which cryptically could be opened by a keyboard shortcut. The new quest system will be much more obvious, with a clear indication of what your goal is, right in the main user interface.

Can players expect to see any major enhancements or additions on the multiplayer side of things?

Possibly, however, we’re not quite ready to discuss multiplayer yet.

Should Kingpin Reloaded generate enough interest from audiences, could that lead to a revival of the IP with a sequel down the road?

That’s 100% our plan. We’d love to see Kingpin continue as an ongoing series of games with a masterplan in place to introduce new key characters and create an interesting Kingpin storyverse that never has to end!

Will the game will feature Xbox One X and PS4 Pro-specific enhancements? Is 4K/60 FPS on the cards?

That’s the plan!

How is the game running on the original Xbox One and PS4, in terms of frame rate and resolution?

The goal is 60 fps, 1080p.

"On Switch, we’re aiming to have the game running at 60 fps, in native resolutions both docked and in handheld mode."

What are the docked and undocked resolution and frame rate of the Switch version?

We’re aiming to have the game running at 60 fps, in native resolutions both docked and in handheld mode.

There’s been a lot of talk of SSDs, which the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are both confirmed to feature. What’s the biggest impact it’s going to have on development, according to you?

For a game like Kingpin: Reloaded, which is not too demanding on your hardware, the SSD won’t have much of an impact, except for the loading times. However, for larger scale, AAA titles, we’re definitely expecting it to improve things drastically.

Speaking of next-gen hardware, something else that the PS5 and the Xbox Series X are both going to have is a Zen 2 CPU- how big of a leap is it over current-gen hardware in your view, and how is it going to help development?

We see that the Series X will have almost double the performance output, which will be a huge benefit for larger scale AAA games. And for smaller games, it will allow faster loading times, faster streaming, better AI and of course 60fps, 4k much more often.

The Xbox Series X also features GDDR6 memory- what’s the impact it will have on games in conjunction with the other advancements we’re going to see in next-gen consoles?

Faster memory means faster loading and the need for lesser loading screens in general. It will also allow us to add more geometry, visual effects, and higher detail assets into our games, without having to worry about running out of memory.

"In previous generations, people often kept their older consoles during a transition phase. I think that people will be faster at switching, knowing that their older games will play just fine (if not better, at faster frame rates) on new consoles."

Backward compatibility is something else both new consoles are banking on quite heavily. How much of an impact do you think it will have from the perspective of both, developers and consumers?

In previous generations, people often kept their older consoles during a transition phase. I think that people will be faster at switching, knowing that their older games will play just fine (if not better, at faster framerates) on new consoles. So it will definitely have an impact on both developers and consumers, being able to keep your back-catalog of games on the same system.

What’s your take on the PS5’s haptic-enabled controller? Do you think it’s something that can significantly add to an experience, or is it just going to be a novelty?

It’s not something we’ve looking into too much yet. Usually these gimmicky features are more of a novelty, but we’re looking forward to playing around with it, and see what fun ideas we can come up with.

The Xbox Series X is looking like an absolute powerhouse based on all that we’ve seen of it so far, and developers and publishers around the industry have spoken up quite regularly about how excited they are about its potential.

We recently interviewed 3D Realms’ co-founders Frederik Schreiber and Scott Miller about the upcoming Kingpin: Reloaded, an enhanced re-release of the classic shooter being published by them. When our conversation turned to next-gen consoles (as it often does) and what the specs that have been revealed for the consoles will enable, Schreiber and Miller spoke quite highly of the upcomind hardware.

Something that came up in particular was the Xbox Series X’s custom Zen 2 CPU, which, according to Schreiber and Miller, will “almost double the performance output” of the console.

“We see that the [Xbox] Series X will have almost double the performance output, which will be a huge benefit for larger scale AAA games,” they said. “And for smaller games, it will allow faster loading times, faster streaming, better AI, and, of course, 60 FPS and 4K much more often.”

Speaking of the two consoles’ SSDs, while they noted that a game like Kingpin: Reloaded – which isn’t a very demanding title – won’t have much to do with an SSD, they did say that large-scale AAA titles will see “drastic” improvements.

“For a game like Kingpin: Reloaded, which is not too demanding on your hardware, the SSD won’t have much of an impact, except for the loading times,” they said. “However, for larger scale, AAA titles, we’re definitely expecting it to improve things drastically.”

Kingpin: Reloaded is coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch later this year. Our full interview with Schreiber and Miller will be live soon, so stay tuned.

On October 23^rd 2019, Bethesda announced Fallout 1^st. The premium subscription service offered access to Private Worlds, a Scrapbox with unlimited storage for components, a Survival Tent for a free fast-travel point, Ranger Armor from Fallout: New Vegas and some Atoms. All of this for $12.99 per month or that elusive “best value” of $99 per year.

For fans who had tolerated many of Fallout 76‘s failings, this may have seemed like yet another ill-timed move on the part of Bethesda. However, it was also the timing of the announcement that brought the online title and the franchise in general to into sharp focus. This was no longer a franchise about delivering a scathing, post-apocalyptic commentary on patriotism, capitalism and humanity while struggling with the harsh reality of survival. Fallout 76 came across as a monument to greed for a product that many felt hadn’t earned its redemption.

To add insult to injury, the Scrapbox was bugged for some and ate their components forever. The Private Worlds were reportedly reused instances that had already been looted. Bethesda announced it was working on a fix for the former while denying the latter.

All these years later, with the ups, downs, deaths and resurrections that the franchise has seen, one has to ask: What the hell happened to Fallout? To answer that question, we have to go all the way back to 2004 when the franchise was still very much the property of Interplay Entertainment.

Interplay will be a very familiar name to old-school RPG fans. The company broke into the role-playing game scene with The Bard’s Tale and Wasteland, the latter being an early predecessor to the Fallout franchise. Interplay was also involved in publishing and brought out some legitimately great games throughout the years like The Lost Vikings, Descent, Giants: Citizen Kabuto and FreeSpace 2. In 1996, Interplay established an RPG development division with Feargus Urquhart as the founder. The studio would go on to create Fallout, a “post nuclear role playing game” that embraced character creation, meaningful choices and tout story-telling.

Fallout would receive a sequel in 1998 while the RPG division received a name – Black Isle Studios. Fallout 2 was also a success, improving on the original with a larger world and even more freedom of choice. Black Isle was seemingly on a roll from that point on – it released Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale while also serving as publisher for the Baldur’s Gate series from a relatively unknown studio called BioWare. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for the studio with Van Buren aka Fallout 3 and a non D&D title called Torn in development. Then, in December 2003, Interplay announced that Black Isle Studios was closing.

Interplay was facing severe financial problems much before this, being on the verge of bankruptcy in 1998. Though the company went public, these problems didn’t necessarily disappear. As it was a PC-centric developer in an age where consoles like the PlayStation One were reigning supreme, Interplay struggled to survive. Like the point and click adventure genre, the traditional computer RPG was looking less and less viable as time went on. Losses mounted despite a number of great games published. By 2001, the majority of the company was owned by Titus Software and several cost-saving measures were adopted including the closure of Black Isle Studios (which had its own share of debt) and the cancellation of its projects.

Feargus Urquhart left Black Isle several months prior to establish Obsidian Entertainment (which, again, you might have heard of). When speaking to GameSpot in January 2004, Urquhart speculated that “Interplay has decided to put all of its remaining development effort behind Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and the Exalted license. Both of those are console titles, while Black Isle was making a PC product. Plus, I would assume that Interplay could make more money in the short term by selling Fallout to another publisher and letting the team go than finishing the product.”

Of course, this wasn’t Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, a tactical role-playing game from Micro Forte and 14 Degrees East. This was Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, a linear action RPG for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Criticized for its repetitive gameplay and forced grittiness, it was a big failure for Interplay. The worst was yet to come though. In 2005, Titus Software filed for bankruptcy, leaving Interplay with a lot of debt and on the verge of bankruptcy once again. So in 2007, the Fallout IP was sold to Bethesda Softworks. The latter was known for a variety of titles but gained the most fame with The Elder Scrolls series. Around that time, it had released The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion to abject critical and commercial success.

There were a few problems though. First is that the company’s RPGs weren’t isometric turn-based titles but first person action RPGs with large open worlds. Sure enough, when Fallout 3 was announced, there was skepticism over its shift to a fully 3D title with real-time shooting and combat. Developed on Bethesda’s Gamebryo Engine, it was also the first Fallout title to not involve any of the original game’s creators.

In hindsight however, Bethesda was making all the right moves with Fallout 3. Though it included over-the-top elements like slow-mo head explosions and blood spatter, the focus was on a more serious title that channeled the franchise’s post-apocalyptic themes of survival in a brutal world. High profile actors like Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman were roped in, the latter famous for his rendition of “War. War never changes.” Though combat was in first person, character creation still formed a large part of the gameplay with skill checks and conversations yielding vastly different results depending on your stats.

Fallout 3 released in October 2008 and received strong praise from critics. Though Fallout 2 director and writer Tim Cain criticized the endings, he appreciated the overall level of detail of the world. Chris Avellone, who also directed and designed Fallout 2, loved the open world and variety of options available despite finding having some issues with the writing. Despite numerous bug and glitches, not to mention some hardcore fans believing that this wasn’t a “true” Fallout, Fallout 3 was a massive commercial success. It shipped 4.7 million units by the year end and is estimated to have sold 12.4 million copies worldwide as of November 2015.

It’s interesting to note that at the time, Interplay was in an agreement with Bethesda to work on Fallout Online. The MMO sought to have player-controlled towns and social areas with roughly 65,000 square miles of terrain been mapped out. Of course by 2009, Bethesda sought to rescind the license due to Interplay apparently not starting development in time. It also didn’t help that Interplay was still selling the Fallout Trilogy which consisted of the original three games. Following numerous years of trials, the two companies settled out of court for $2 million dollars. Bethesda had Fallout Online all to itself while Interplay could no longer sell the original Fallout Trilogy after December 31^st 2013.

Following the success of Fallout 3, Bethesda brought in Obsidian Entertainment to create a sequel. The company already had a lot of former Black Isle Studios talent including former Icewind Dale designer Josh Sawyer and Fallout 2 designer Chris Avellone along with former founder, now CEO of Obsidian Feargus Urquhart. The team saw this as an opportunity to use several elements from its vision of Fallout 3 in the new title. The result was Fallout: New Vegas, running on the Gamebryo Engine and featuring much of the same gameplay mechanics as Bethesda’s game.

Though it had a development cycle of just 18 months, New Vegas was praised for its story-telling, quest design, improvements to the visuals and further refinement to the shooting. Many hardcore fans considered it the true successor to the first two games over Fallout 3. The short development cycle gave way to issues like numerous bugs, glitches and crashes to the point where it’s still recommended to play with mods despite numerous updates.

Fallout: New Vegas released in October 2010 and shipped a whopping 5 million copies in just a few weeks. By 2015, it had sold 11.6 million copies and enjoyed its fair share of critical acclaim, though Bethesda infamously denied a bonus to Obsidian for the title failing to receive a Metacritic score of 85+. Bethesda itself had been busy working on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, which would release in 2011 and set new standards with its open world and scale.

Prior this, however, Bethesda was raising capital to the tune of $450 million. It began expanding its publishing efforts to Europe and opened offices in Tokyo and Frankfurt before expanding to other countries over the years (Moscow being the most recent). Parent company ZeniMax Media was also making big moves. It acquired id Software in 2009 and published RAGE. In 2010, it acquired Arkane Studios, known for Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and for being involved with BioShock 2. The studio would go on to develop the Dishonored franchise before eventually heading up Prey (which was reported to have its own issues, including rumored interference from Bethesda who acquired the IP rights in 2011).

For all intents and purposes, Bethesda was becoming a big deal, publishing a range of titles while cultivating its own studios and properties. However, the main development team often received the same question: What about the next Fallout? When was Fallout 4 coming? It had been several years since The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. What was the studio’s plan for the next Fallout? Unbeknownst to some – and rumored by others – plans for Fallout 4 began in 2009. Though production began in the same year, the title fully entered production in 2013.

Unlike its predecessor, Fallout 4 wanted to be different from the older games – it wanted to channel their tone while introducing a bevy of new gameplay features. Base-building, a fully-voiced protagonist, better gun play, a deeper weapon customization system, hundreds of objects to interact with and the ability to manage an entire settlement were confirmed on top of the previously established V.A.T.S. NPC interactions would be more free-form; animations would be better (at least, that was the idea). The dynamic dialogue system promised a greater degree of player agency. The Creation Engine allowed for sculpting one’s character instead of relying on sliders, not to mention implementing graphical options like motion blur, screen space reflections, an improved material system and much more.

The marketing blitzkrieg was in full effect. A countdown timer ended on June 3^rd to formally announce the sequel and reveal the first trailer. Visually, the game was a step-up from the likes of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas though it was considered inferior to more contemporary titles like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Nonetheless, Fallout 4 was at the top of many wish-lists. Bethesda capitalized on the hype and released Fallout Shelter, a mobile title that involved managing one’s own Vault. It served as a nice distraction till Fallout 4 launch, despite being criticized for having lunch boxes that could be purchased with real money.

When Fallout 4 released, it received positive acclaim across the board and shipped a whopping 12 million units in the first 24 hours. About 1.2 million copies were sold in the same period. It seemed like another huge success for Bethesda. However, after the initial honeymoon phase wore off, some fan sentiment began to change.

The game’s numerous bugs and performance issues were criticized but it was Bethesda’s overall creative vision that faced the harshest criticism. Skill-checks were effectively gone or rendered pointless with interactions also feeling heavily dumbed down. The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system felt less like a character defining tool set and more like a straight upgrade system. The story came across as far too similar to Fallout 3 with the added interaction of factions viewed as not impactful enough. Though the gun play was praised and the world fun to explore, many felt that the settlement building system was ultimately irrelevant to what they wanted from the game. It didn’t help that Bethesda’s some of Bethesda’s subsequent DLC packs were focused entirely on settlement building.

Fallout 3 faced skepticism before launch but Fallout 4 was the subject of a more significant, sustained backlash after release. Many felt it was more akin to an open world looter shooter than a full-fledged RPG. Though Bethesda supported the title over the years with numerous bug fixes, mod support and features like Survival Mode, it also used Fallout 4 to launch the Creation Club. This was essentially the company’s attempt to introduce paid mods after failing to do so with Skyrim on Steam once upon a time. The store’s prices, coupled with free mods still being very popular, would see it viewed with scorn. At the very least, Bethesda wasn’t attempt to stifle free mods and continued encouraging their discovery and support within the game itself.

The Fallout brand wasn’t damaged goods by a long shot but the urge for something that felt like a true next-generation sequel became stronger. In the interim, Fallout Shelter was still very successful. Live-service games and loot boxes started rolling in 2016 with the release of Overwatch; the popularity of the live-service model exploded when Fortnite: Battle Royale released by 2017 end. Bethesda brought the Creation Club to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Special Edition on Xbox One, PS4 and PC, with the expected mixed reception.

It was never formally confirmed when Fallout 76 started development but the trends that Bethesda were chasing would only become more obvious later. On May 30^th 2018, Fallout 76 was announced after a 24 hour livestream with the “Please Stand By” test message that the series had become known for.

Rumors beforehand indicated that Fallout 4 would have a sequel spin-off, much like Fallout: New Vegas. Though Bethesda didn’t provide any real details about Fallout 76 upon its announcement, reports from Kotaku’s Jason Schreier indicated that it was an online-only survival title. When E3 2018 finally arrived, Bethesda revealed that Fallout 76 was a prequel to the series and indeed only playable online. Of course, to placate fans, the company also revealed that single-player efforts like the long-rumored Starfield was also in development along with The Elder Scrolls 6.

As the months passed, the developer promised that all post-launch content would be free with the Atom Shop and its microtransactions bringing in revenue. The promise of “only cosmetic” items in the Atom Shop was made and fans awaited the first open beta which would arrive on the Bethesda Games Launcher. When it was finally available, some PC players faced a fairly serious dilemma.

The 50 GB client, upon downloading, had deleted itself, prompting Bethesda’s infamous reply to “not click any buttons on the client for the time being.” Things only went from bad to worse when those who did play the beta reported horrible performance, years-old bugs like game speed being tied to frame rate, the lack of an FOV slider and push-to-talk chat functionality, and countless other bugs and glitches. What was most alarming was that Fallout 76 would officially launch on November 14^th, a little over a week after the open beta’s conclusion

Of course, at launch, the game was an unmitigated disaster with its bugs. Reviews circulated quickly and criticized the game’s lack of a compelling story, repetitive side quests, lack of human NPCs, poor gameplay, the list goes on. The title would be embroiled in one controversy after another, whether it was the canvas bag in the Power Armor Edition actually being made of nylon, support tickets with sensitive information being publicly available to view, stealth nerfs, numerous crashes, item duplication woes, or eventually, gameplay-affecting items available in the Atom Shop. Each new major update seemingly broke the game and some bugs, like the endless firing sound from sentry turrets, just wouldn’t die.

The future of Fallout 76 continues to look cloudy. Bethesda has commented on Private Worlds offering mod support. With the former being locked behind a paid subscription, this seems like a way to introduce “approved mods” and perhaps even charge for the same. The Wastelanders update has been delayed and there’s not a whole lot of hope for it having a bug-free launch. Bethesda is seemingly past the point of revitalizing the game – it’s now a matter of keeping whatever players it still has, continuously testing the waters for what’s okay to monetize.

It’s interesting to view the Fallout franchise in retrospect. As a computer RPG series ahead of its time, it suffered from a company that wanted to focus on a more streamlined, action-oriented game while pushing aside the role-playing mechanics. It chased the MMO trend but was quickly out of its depth.

Bethesda seemingly understood what made Fallout successful and translated those gameplay elements into a compelling sequel that would also appeal to a new generation. Overtime, it decided to focus more on streamlining certain RPG elements and focusing on a more action-oriented approach. Lo and behold, Bethesda also took to chasing the latest trends – microtransactions, live-service elements, shared worlds, etc – to cash in. The main difference between the two is that Interplay felt it had to trend-chase for the sake of staying afloat while Bethesda seemingly cashed in on what was considered “hot.”

Hilariously enough, Obsidian Entertainment has had the opportunity to make its envisioned title not once but twice. With Fallout: New Vegas, it brought Van Buren back from the dead. With the recently released The Outer Worlds, it gave fans the spiritual successor to New Vegas that they always craved.

For all intents and purposes, Fallout is a successful franchise for Bethesda. The company isn’t going bankrupt anytime soon and doesn’t have to worry about selling the IP. It could see just how far the well could be poisoned before putting the Fallout franchise on the back-burner and focusing on its other games. Perhaps some kind of shake-up is required for the company to bring the franchise back to its role-playing roots.

Either way, the story of Fallout doesn’t end here. Whether it sinks to new depths or has its legacy carried on by the likes of The Outer Worlds or more hardcore games like Underrail remains to be seen.

Saren – Mass Effect 1

It’s extremely telling that Saren Arterius is still one of the best villains BioWare has ever created. However, for all his cunning and brutality, it’s a testament to Shepard’s will that Saren can basically kill himself. If your Paragon level is high enough, then Shepard will tell Saren to fight off the influence of Sovereign. Saren sees the light of reason and shoots himself, thanking Shepard and preventing a tough boss battle in the process (and triggering the final final battle).