Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

This is pretty much a cult classic at this point. One of Bethesda's best games in the Fallout universe. I wish they would remaster it and put some of FO4's mechanics in it or at least make the characters more modern looking. However there is a charm that can't be beat.

Its good, i know most people say its better than fallout 4, but the running mechanic is unbearable, i would play it more if the guy could run like a human instead of a little girl going to sunday school, but other than that its good.

This was my first Fallout game; it has been a decade since I last played this, but the game holds up very well compared to modern games. The main quest line, while not having NV's player choice, has the player go through many fun and interesting locations and objectives. The side-quests are very memorable with the double-edged-sword of needing to explore and find them randomly in the wasteland. I would highly recommend Fallout 3 to those who love the Fallout Franchise and those who love Bethesda Game Studios games

Genuinely fun. Install some HD mods patchers and its fun. Even without the retextures its still fun.

steam doesnt work well with this game so theres no screenshots, achievements or playtime recorded at all, crashes constantly and new vegas is way better

I don't know how Bethesda made Oblivion and then went to make this game; it's really really fucking boring, the base game and the DLC just are so weak sauce compared to the rest of the series; even just compared to Fallout 4, it's just so.... boring. It's not the worst game I've ever played but the story and character progression is just a nothing burger.

This was the first RPG I have ever completed and back in the day I absolutely adored it. However, as the time passed, I realised how much flawed this game truly is.
I personally don't require top notch graphics, and I don't have much problem with playing games that are not visually appealing, even though I of course prefer quality visuals, but this game is objectively really outdated in terms of graphics even for its time. But bad graphics are passable for me.
The bigger problem are gameplay mechanics, especially the shooting and combat generally, which is just junky and doesn't work well. I know this game is built on gamebryo engine, the engine which powered Oblivion, but good god, what a miserable experience it is gameplay wise. I would argue that the combat is partly fixed in Fallout: New Vegas which runs on the same engine, but even in that game it's quite a downside. But in contrast to New Vegas, Fallout 3 has even bigger issues than just poor gameplay mechanics.
The main story is decent, even quite good in the first half. I don't personally hate the intro, where you grow up in Vault 101, because it makes sense to try to make the player attached to the character of James, player character's father. However, the problem is that James' on-screen time is extremely short, thus making the intro truly redundant, because his role in the story is just to introduce project purity and die. That's basically it. And it's a shame, because I liked James in the intro. But even without James in the first half, it's the better part of the story. Much better in fact. When I played The Witcher 3, I reminisced over Fallout 3 first half because of the evident similarities, when you search for a supposedly beloved character. The difference is, however, that in Wild Hunt this concept works perfectly, because Ciri has quite a lot of screen time after you find her and she is one of the best characters in the game with complex motivations. But James in Fallout 3 isn't like that at all. Even his morals aren't consistent, because if you blow up Megaton, he just says something like he is disappointed in you and that you will speak later seriously about that topic, WHICH NEVER HAPPENS BECAUSE HE DIES. And oh my god the part when Enclave arrives... From this point, the story is just awful. Enclave shouldn't exist at this point, for it was destroyed in Fallout 2. But even worse than the fact it was retconned is the execution, which is straight up terrible. Enclave doesn't have single interesting character, no complexity whatsoever. President Eden is supposed to be a supercomputer, but you can still persuade him so easily to blow himself and the whole Enclave base up. And colonel Autumn is equally miserable. I know Broken Steel fixed the ending itself, but I am reviewing the base game here, for I have no intention in continuing my journey throughout this mess of a game, so I just want to point out my deepest dissatisfaction with the ending, which is too black and white for a FALLOUT GAME, FOR GODS’ SAKE. Why should you be treated as a selfish or even bad guy (lol) if you refused to sacrifice yourself in the end, when there is literal Brotherhood of Steel sentinel who is supposed to do the sacrifice without hesitation (the decision of transforming the complex faction of BoS into just some kind of order of knights in shining armour with tech weapons is also kind of bad, because it removes it's sophisticated characteristics from previous titles, but hey, it's a Bethesda game, what should I expect - the worst part is, that sentinel Lyons' unwillingness to sacrifice just FO3's BoS extremely inconsistent in its core characteristics).
So, the gameplay is outdated, main story is kind of awful, what about side quests? In my opinion, this is perhaps the best part of the game, if you happen to stumble upon the, I will say, better content. There are some quests that are definitely worth your time, especially The Wasteland Survival Guide one. However, most of the side content lacks moral dilemmas and this shouldn't be the case in a Fallout game, right?
Exploration can be rewarding, if you consider as reward the endless loop of looting, bad combat, looting, bad combat, looting... Ahh, this game was truly rushed. Interiors are mostly the same, there is almost nobody in the Wasteland even though it's 200 years after the Great War and civilization should be much more present. The world of Fallout 3 just feels so dead. Even Fallout 1, where it was understandable that the world is in ruins, for the game is set just 80 years after the bombs fell, had more vibrant and living world.
The only thing I can truly appreciate is the hunting atmosphere of dreadfulness, which I really enjoyed.

Summary:
Technical state (4/10)
Story (4/10)
Side quests (7/10)
Graphics (4/10)
World and level design (6/10)
Atmosphere and soundtrack (9/10)
RPG elements (7/10)
Gameplay (4/10)

Final score: 5.6/10
I can ‘t recommend Fallout 3 because of its technical state on PC, where it just doesn’t even start without mods on Windows 11. And to even enjoy this game, you have to ignore the main story, which isn’t a good sign. DLCs are not taken in mind in this review, and they probably won’t receive their own reviews, because I have no intention to return to this game, sorry.

Pretty good game. I think it has some very good quests and it was did a big and impressive jump for the series. It has some of the coolest and most interesting side content, like Tenpenny Towers, Vault 108, Rivet City, and the expansions.
It doesn't work well on other systems and you can't side with any factions which is annoying.
Overall 8/10 definitely buy on sale

Finished Fallout 3, Used the Tale of 2 Wastelands Mod and which has a lengthy installation process to make it play in the New Vegas Engine or would use the unofficial patch and in Wanderer’s Addition and this game doesn’t work on windows and will crash and will install a mod for that. Manifest Destiny definitely enhances the enclave and gives the choice to join them compared to the base game.

The Game story is just not as good as New Vegas and starting to understand why people say Bethesda doesn’t understand fallout all that well or lack any type of story depth in their games. Majority of the worldbuilding is just 2 major settlements and a lot of the other locations don’t really leave an impression besides the vaults. I really like the Little Lamplight and Big town lore since it was pretty interesting to help them out along with the escaped slaves in the temple of union but beyond that the game barely gives you or leads you into interesting side stuff to flesh out the world and not structured to make you immerse and you really have. This game really lacks in having an abundance of notable questlines apart from the main line and it makes the wasteland feel like a barren wasteland in some of the worst ways and makes the rest of the setting left unexplored due to no questlines not taking place in less populated areas. The Main quest involves your Self-insert’s Father and is a completely forgettable character and it feels you don’t have much input as the player to carve your own mark into the world. It only takes 5 min to make president Eden self delete and you barely interact with the general which makes them forgettable antagonists and the enclave barely has presence in the wasteland in the story. The Main story will only take 30 hours to finish compared to the 62 hours I spent in the main story in New Vegas and that goes to show the amount of content difference in quality and quantity. The Only factions are the BoS and Enclave with the other enemy groups being your raiders and super mutants and it kinda gets boring fighting the same enemy over and over and it’s not offset by the somewhat bland and empty open world with barely anything to do. The Companions add some perks but that’s really it but Fawkes was a goat and kind of a success of the Vault 87 experiment.

The DLCs also vary in quality, Mothership Zeta was cool for a while and then I was meh throughout the rest of the experience but the alien weapon was cool but the story has nothing to write home about. The Pitt had plenty of weight and was the strongest in terms of story since it did Death Stranding before Kojima came up with the concept with the choice to do with the baby and the enemies was okay and choices felt interesting to explore and having to double back. Point Lookout had a cool concept but the main concept with the brain and the Ghoul left me disconnected and since it barely had depth and was more interested in the enclave presence in the area and the inbreds and what was going on with them. I had major Game crashing glitches in this area and nowhere else. Broken Steel was the best since it feels like a natural epilogue to the main story line in wiping out the enclave forces and you get very cool weapons. Project Anchorage was interesting, like getting a prequel of the American chinese war but it was just okay.

The Overall Gameplay in the NV Engine just improves the experience and using the guns and the stats does matter a lot but the speech is reduced to percentages instead numerical values which always bother due to constantly reloading save files to pass speech cheeks. A lot of the guns are great and I favor using the .32 rifle, sniper rifle, and assault rifles since they do good damage values in the VATS and are basically a big clutch when it comes to combat.

Characters in the game are not memorable.

My favourite fallout game because it was also my first. Simple story with good progression, plenty of choices, game is challenging without being ridiculously hard - Fallout 4 I'm looking at you - Immersive and engaging. I actually felt like I was in a post apocalyptic world. It's like being Lucy from the TV Show, trying to find your father, and making friends and enemies along the way.

good game currently facing launching problems but good game

My first Fallout, and still fun to play through every few years. The exploration and random encounters are the best in the series. Would love to see this get the Oblivion Remastered treatment in the future!

As others have said, this game is practically unplayable as of 2025. Game crashes upon starting new game. Installed various patches as well as configuring files and still no luck. Much older games run fine on new hardware so age isn't an excuse, it's purely Bethesda laziness that this game no longer works. How this is allowed to stay up on Steam is astounding, surely this must fail some Steam Store quality control.

Aw well, New Vegas is much better although that game is an unstable mess that is prone to crashes, but at least it starts up and plays.

Broken and unplayable as of 2025. No YouTube guides or Nexus patches work anymore. If there is not a remaster of this coming in 2026 (which lets be real is just another classic, contemptable Bethesda cash grab) then this game is well and truly dead on Steam and you are going to have to bust out your old Xbox 360 to even hope to play it anymore. Games like this should be delisted unless the publisher is going to fix it.

The best of the 3d Fallout games.
K.I.S.S.
Just make a character and go out exploring.
Good times.

Love the story, DLC's and combat but steam wont record my hours correctly

Playing this for the first time as a teenager was one of the greatest gaming experiences ever. It's still great today, even without mods.

Literally my favorite Fallout Game of all time, I had gotten it on the PS3 back in the day and being able to play it on the Steam Deck on the go is a Dream come true.
It's performance on the Steam Deck is amazing only crashing like every 5 hours or more.

This game has a massive following Honestly it needs my feedback like a insect needs to be in congress. Needless and pointless. Buy this game.

Half of the enemies don't belong on the East coast and should've stayed out of this game.
This is a fan game that got an official release.
It abandons the mechanics of the originals to be an Elder Scrolls game with a Fallout aesthetic.
You have to pay to be able to keep playing after you beat the game.

Ah Fallout 3- My introduction to the world of Fallout all the way back in 2008. A little janky, but still a good time. Word of advice: look for mods that fix the Broken Steel added enemies so they are less frustrating.

tl:dr Quite fun, yet mediocre at best

This game makes you appreciate how much work was put to New Vegas to make this formula work.

Also roaming wasteland is kind of fun with all that hectic random encounters and free for all fights.

And despite its age, it never crashed, tho there were a few quirks.

That is pretty much all good things I can say about this game.

Writing is naive, main quest feels uninspired. Worldbuilding is generic TES-pilled Good Knights vs Evil Orcs (oh and there are Evil Knights too! And even Good Knights, who are kinda bad) but in post apocalyptic setting.

Gameplay mechanics are shallow. Perks system has so much wasted potential. Alaska DLC is tedious Call of Duty Fallout spin-off, which upon completing gives you ungodly amount of weapons, power armor AND a skill, required to wear it.

Like, hello? Game is pretty much over from this point on.

I dont think I will ever want to replay FO3 again, but that certainly was an experience.

I do not recommend this game. 4/10

Disclaimers although before I get started. I played this game for the first time in 2025. I've owned the game for years, but never played it because it always crashed with the whole Games for Windows Live thing. I knew they removed that a few years ago, but I just got around to playing it. I've played Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, and part of Fallout 2 before this game. My perspective comes from comparing it to the others. While I have lots of complaints I will not deny the importance or impact of Fallout 3 upon release. Without Fallout 3 there would be no NV or 4 to compare it to. The innovations made in 3 guided the series along. Upon release in 2008 I know it was mind blowing, that being said however I don't find the game has aged well.

The Positive

This game has a lot of things I dislike, but I want to start with the things I enjoyed first. FO3 has probably some of my favorite vaults in the whole franchise. Vault 108 and Vault 92 being my favorite. This game also has one of my favorite DLCs in the fallout franchise being The Pitt. The Pitt had great atmosphere and actually interesting moral choices to be made. Besides that I do have to credit Bethesda with making much better improvements in character design since Oblivion in 2006. Characters look pretty good all things considered for this time period. I do have to admit that Fallout 3 innovated for the series to lay the groundwork for future 3D Fallout games. A lot of the things in this game is nice and those best parts got taken and put into future Fallout games. Cool things like the VATS system and the audio diaries and environmental storytelling. The grocery store with the looney tunes-esque booby traps in it was amazing.

The Neutral

Not really bad or good, but things I noticed is how similar thematically Fallout 3 is to Fallout 4. A lot of the themes is 3 feel expanded on in 4. I mean the whole story of 4 is just the "The Replicated Man" quest expanded. Another thing is that a lot of the radio tracks in 3 get reused in 4. In a way in makes Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 feel like they're off doing their own thing while Fallout 2 and Fallout New Vegas are doing something else. Fallout New Vegas feels much more like a sequel to 2 then 3 does. They have very different vibes from one another.

The Negative

The very first negative thing I had going was even getting the game to play. As I mentioned prior I couldn't even play the game thanks to GFWL. Even after they removed that requirement I had constant issues with my Windows 10 computer with a 4070 GPU 16GB Ram and 3.60GHz CPU. Vanilla the game would crash in the intro cutscene every time. I had to get bug fixing mods just to start the game. I spent a few hours trying to get the game to even run. Once it was running I was getting performance issues with it only running at 50 fps. Apparently the physics is tied to fps so I had to get a mod to fix that, but I was still having performance issues so I eventually had to clamp the FPS to 60. No reason for the game to run like that with my rig. Once I was playing the game without crashing or awful performance I was having other issues. Out of every Bethesda game I have played I honestly think this one is the most glitchy. It's horrible. Even with the unofficial patch I still encountered multiple game breaking bugs like being shot into a wall or important character's being dead before I even met them in a T-Pose. Besides the mods I had for bug fixing and performance I played the game vanilla to experience it, but also because the modding scene is dead. Almost all the mods are from 2009 only. Seems like as soon as New Vegas dropped the modding scene here dried up instantly. Very few mods were released after 2010. None that looked interesting to me anyways. My biggest gripe is the gameplay. It feels half baked when compared to New Vegas that used the same engine. The games play very similarly, but New Vegas really added the polish to the gameplay that it needed. Fallout 3 has no weapon mods. No weapon repair kits. No alternate ammo. The only ammo bench is in The Pitt DLC. It's missing a lot of elements I just took for granted in NV. Besides a few stand outs almost all the perks are absolute garbage. Most perks increase your skill points, but you get skill points when you level up anyways and you can easily max out your all your skill points so these perks feel absolutely wasted. Furthermore the armor and arsenal feel minuscule when compared to the other games. The map also feels tiny as well. The depth to the gameplay that NV added just isn't there. There aren't even iron sights to aim down with the weapons it just zooms in. The world itself feels pretty boring. A lot of the locations aren't too memorable. There's a lot of boring metro stations that make it confusing to navigate the D.C. area. I don't feel the same joy exploring the map as I do in other Fallout games. The town's have interesting gimmicks, but just don't feel quite fleshed out. The exploring locations feel so boring it's hard to care to explore them. They feel more like places than pieces of lore. A lot of my time playing I was only playing to do the quests and DLC to experience it. Not for enjoyment. The game does have some highlights with some locations and spectical of some set pieces, but most of it was a drag to get through. I would only recommend it to die hard fans who want to know more about the series at any cost or to experience the Vaults or the DLCs. A few good moments ruined by an ocean of nothing.

I don't know how many times I've played this game - on the Xbox 360, on the PS3 and now on PC. IMO, this is THE Fallout game. It's an atmospheric masterpiece. I've tried New Vegas and Fallout 4 and they just couldn't compete with the unique setting of Fallout 3.
However: This version is a tad more difficult to love. Return to Windows while the game is running means the game will crash (every single time). Or it will just crash randomly at any point. I still don't have the heart to give it a negative review, although I probably should. :\

This game really never gets old! There's so many choices and possibilities that it can be replayed endlessly. Fallout 3 was my first introduction into open world RPGs and its the reason of my love for the genre today! If you havn't played Fallout 3 before, don't be put off by the graphics and give it a shot. You wont be disappointed!

Apart from 76, this is probably my least favorite out of all the mainline Fallout games. But the fact that I still really liked it just goes to show how high quality the series is. Give it a shot if you haven't if only for the sake that this game is historic.

This is a review for the port not the game. If you like fallout games and simply want more then sure go play but otherwise ehhh just go play New Vegas. The port however is awful. I understand that there is modding support but what I don't understand is why the game will not keep track of my hour count or have any kind of achievements when New Vegas on the same engine has both of those. It runs incredibly poorly for a game from the ps360 era on my extremely modern PC especially the DLC areas like Mothership Zeta or the Pitt they gave me the most frame dips. This alongside the numerous crashes and bugs that can sometimes even keep you from advancing quests make this an embarrassing port of an already meh game.

It's not the best example of the series, and it needs a lot of attention to get it up and running reliably on modern systems, but it's a genuine Classic rpg. Get it on sale and experience it if you haven't!

Steam shows me playing for only 5 hours, but I've actually played for hundreds of hours previously on Xbox Live. Lots of fun exploring the Fallout world! And in this game, you're father is Liam Neeson! 'Nuff said.

This game is a turning point in the fallout series of games.

Fallout 1-2 was isometic. Fallout 3 is first person with a option to play 3rd person in limted capacity.

For me i liked the - back when i played it - modern visuals over fallout 1/2.

Pro tip: if you wanna play Fallout 3 or Fallout new vegas (both some of the best Fallout games there is) then go to gog.com and buy the game there.
The problem is that the steam version of those games run with (or tries to run is more correct) games for windoes. That is a oooold program that microsoft used that dont work any more. And it causes problems that are not in the gog.com version.

theres are still problem with making the game run on modern systems tho, and a moderen remaster would be a cool thing for Bethesda to do!

An interesting experiment to be sure. Wildly successful in adapting the heights of Fallout's pulp goodness to a 3D world but the writing's taken a sad turn towards the weaker parts of Fallout 2's writing in both the main story and sundry questlines. Combat's clunky but often strangely satisfying and there's a heart to it that carries it.

Heavily bullied vault girl kills everyone in vault and goes on to make the wasteland 100% worse and 50% less populated. 8/10

It doesn't even function. Game crashes upon attempting to start a new game. Only reason I'm not refunding is because I intend on modding it to make it function someday, and also prolly cuz I've already waited too long to do so. After getting fed up trying to fix the issue, I gave up and went to play New Vegas instead. I dunno what cleanup work Obsidian did to Bethesda's engine, but New Vegas still works fine for me. Genuinely disgusted by Bethesda now. Get your lazy, incompetent asses back over here and fix your damn product.

The game is really fun. I used to play it a ton on console. I've only got it to run on my computer about 5 times total in the last few years. It was working prior to the last "fix" that apparently worked for a lot of people. I'm glad it worked for them, but now my fallout 3 is back to crashing as soon as I try to load it. Nothing in anyone's guides helps either since the game is so old, by now the problem could be literally anything. I don't recommend anyone installing the steam version of this game. Honestly, just buy a playstation off ebay and get the disk. Its worth it.

Unpopular opinion, this games better than NV. For me its mainly the nostalgia as i remember me and my buddy playing this on my brothers old Xbox 360 when he was hunting or out of the house. 9/10, a little bit of lag but the spectacular story, side quests and DLC's make up for it.

Fun, although its kinda limited with the endings i still feel like this is one of my favorite entries to this series.

Fallout 3 is a great place to begin if you're new to the franchise, but it's a bit dated by mid-2025 standards. While it isn't as mind-blowing as it might have been when it first released, it is still an incredibly fun experience that almost any RPG fan can get into, especially with the help of some mods.

Good open world RPG with a rich storyline and character development elements.

Honestly way better than i expected it to be. The gameplay and the graphics are pretty solid they could be way worse for the time the game came out. I also haven`t encountered any major bugs so far, only one time when all the enemies in the pitt where spawning at one spot near me making it almost impossible for me to get out of there. All in all the game is pretty addicting, i have spend like 15 hours in it already other than what steam shows, idk why they wont actually track it but the game is really worth the money.

it sucks because of it's damn incompatibility so does other people say it too.

really really boring coming back after playing better RPGs, and the combat isnt even good to make up for it, honestly just watch a lets play of the game if youre interested in its story or anything

For all it's flaws, I really do love this game. Shame I can't play it anymore because it's the year 2025 and they still can't get the game to run.

The game crashes the second after I try to start a new game. Truly another masterpiece by Todd Howard.

Classic post apocalypse RPG. Plenty of fun to be had in the Capitol Wastes.

underrated af, not a new vegas lvl game, but sure is close

May not be the best story wise but it is still pretty good with the landscape and such.

you're probably buying this game as it comes bundled with a few others. its nice to come back and play this game you probably haven't touched since your PS3 broke. worth it IMO but the real question is: what will you do with megaton this time?

88/100

My personal favourite Fallout game. It's not a super complicated "RPG" but it's nostalgic and moody. Beware younger gamers and closed minded gamers, Fallout 3 is old and takes a bit of patience.

Depending on your setup it will crash. I did pure vanilla playthrough - no modding. I could count on one hand how many times I crashed throughout my 40+ hour run. It's a lot more stable than I remembered. (1200p/60fps)

although my play hours don't reflect the real time I've spent in this game and the steam is not counting my latest playthrough after many years I have to review this somewhat underrated game..

It is the first Fallout in 3D environment, and although is not the best one, in my opinion, it is a very important and good game. It has many visual similarities with Elder Scrolls Oblivion with the engine and everything except it is happening in post-apocalyptic world of Washington D.C. instead of Cyrodiil.
Story is good, atmosphere and soundtrack are great, also the DLC's are very good and memorable and add nicely to a game.

A great window into the nostalgia of a game from my childhood, Fallout 3 is a very fun, exciting, and interesting story to play through. It may not be the best, but it will always be my favorite.