The game was released in North America on October 28, 2008, in Europe and Australia on October 30, 2008, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on October 31, 2008. The video game is available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles as well as the Windows operating system.

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 36 years after the setting of Fallout 2 and 200 years after the nuclear war that devastated the game's world in an alternate post-World War II timeline.


The game places the player in the role of an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect a small number of humans from the nuclear fallout. When the player's father disappears under mysterious circumstances, the player is forced to escape from the Vault and journey into the ruins of Washington D.C. to track him down. Along the way the player is assisted by a number of other human survivors and must battle the myriad enemies that now inhabit the wasteland. The game has an attribute and combat system typical of an action role-playing game but also incorporates elements of first-person shooter and survival horror games.

Following its release, Fallout 3 has received very positive responses from critics who praised in particular the game's open-ended gameplay and flexible character-levelling system. The NPD Group estimated that Fallout 3 sold over 610,000 units during its initial month of release in October 2008, outselling Bethesda Softworks' previous game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which sold nearly 500,000 units in its first month.

More Information at www.bethsoft.com. Image and Video Courtesy of Bethesda Game Studios.