Fallout 3 is day 14 of our series on 15 Xbox classics you can still play on Xbox Series X|S. Bethesda’s first Fallout came out on Xbox 360 in 2008, and today it’s in Game Pass with FPS Boost on current consoles.
Fallout 3 at a glance
- Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
- Original release: 28 October 2008 (North America), 31 October 2008 (Europe)
- Original console: Xbox 360
- Xbox Store price: £8.99 / $9.99
- Game Pass: Premium and Ultimate
- Backward compatible since: 12 November 2015
- Enhancements: Xbox One X Enhanced, FPS Boost
What is Fallout 3?
Fallout 3 is an open-world role-playing game set in and around Washington DC in 2277, 200 years after a nuclear war destroyed most of the United States. You play the Lone Wanderer, who grew up in an underground fallout shelter called Vault 101. After your 19th birthday, your father, James, voiced by Liam Neeson, leaves the Vault without explanation, and you head out into the Capital Wasteland to find him.
You can play in first or third person. Your character is built on seven S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, from Strength to Luck, plus 13 skills such as lockpicking, science and speech. In combat, the V.A.T.S. system pauses the action so you can target specific body parts, using Action Points. The Pip-Boy 3000 on your wrist handles your map, inventory, quests and radio. A karma system tracks your good and bad deeds, which changes how characters and companions treat you.
Fallout 3’s history on Xbox
Bethesda bought the rights to make Fallout 3 from Interplay in 2004. Development began late that year with about ten people, since most of the studio was working on Oblivion, and grew to about 75 by the end. It was the first Fallout made by Bethesda, and the studio kept it in-house without hiring anyone from the original games.
Lead designer and writer Emil Pagliarulo wanted the bleak, oppressive feel of the first Fallout. Executive producer Todd Howard wanted combat that mixed real-time and turn-based play, which led to V.A.T.S. and its slow-motion shots. The setting moved from the West Coast to the Washington area because Bethesda is based in nearby Rockville, Maryland. Monuments such as the Washington Monument were used as landmarks to help players find their way.
Inon Zur composed the score, and more than 40,000 lines of dialogue were recorded, a Guinness World Record at the time for a single-player role-playing game. Malcolm McDowell joined Liam Neeson in the cast, and Ron Perlman returned as the narrator.
Bethesda revealed a teaser site in April 2007 and the first trailer that June, set to the Ink Spots’ “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”. Fallout 3 launched on 28 October 2008 and sold 4.7 million copies in its first week, more than every earlier Fallout game combined. Five add-ons followed: Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta. Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas followed in 2010, and Fallout 4 in 2015.
Why it matters
Fallout 3 brought the main Fallout series to Xbox and into Bethesda’s open-world style of role-playing game. Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 kept that first-person, open-world approach, and the series is now part of Xbox’s own line-up after Microsoft bought Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax Media.
It was also part of Xbox One’s backward compatibility launch in 2015. Xbox One owners who bought Fallout 4 by 8 February 2016 could get the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 free to play through backward compatibility.
How to play Fallout 3 on Xbox Series X|S today
Fallout 3 has been backward compatible since 12 November 2015, and it runs on Xbox Series X|S too. You can buy it from the Xbox Store for £8.99 or $9.99.
It’s included with Game Pass Premium and Ultimate. Our Game Pass tiers guide explains what each plan includes.
Fallout 3 is Xbox One X Enhanced, and it got FPS Boost on Xbox Series X|S on 15 November 2021.
If you own the Xbox 360 disc, an Xbox One or Xbox Series X will recognise it and download the backward-compatible version.
More on Fallout 3
Our Fallout 3 hub has the essentials and will collect future coverage. Tomorrow, the series ends with Remedy’s Alan Wake.
