No, Bethesda isn't shadow-dropping Fallout 3 and New Vegas Remasters any time soon — here's what we know.

I hate to be a buzz kill, but cool your jets internet (and put down the jet). The long-rumored Fallout remakes aren't around the corner.

A couple of weeks ago I put out a report describing what Xbox's 2026 would look like, and I mentioned that Fallout 3 and New Vegas are getting remakes. We already knew about the Fallout 3 Remake from the Activision-Blizzard FTC documentation leaks, but New Vegas getting a remake was a relatively new piece of information I received from my sources recently.

Although, I can hardly claim to be sharing a revelation here. The Fallout TV show is a run away success story, and Season 2 is heavily based in and around New Vegas and the Mojave Wasteland. I've been told that Bethesda's other remake project, Oblivion Remastered, was a huge hit for the studio internally too, exceeding internal goals and expectations.

As such, Fallout 3 and New Vegas remakes are a no brainer, leaks or no. But, how soon are we getting them?

Recently, Fallout fans noticed that the Steam entries for Fallout 3 and New Vegas had seen some activity, with some users reporting errors as if game packages were missing. Speculation began to snowball about the possibilities of remakes or remasters being "shadow dropped" in similar fashion to the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster. We are getting an Xbox Developer_Direct this week too, which has precedent for announcing new games from the company's subsidiary teams.

In addition, Amazon's Fallout TV show website has mysterious countdown timers, which compounded the hopes and speculation for a mysterious Fallout 3, New Vegas shadow drop. I can confirm emphatically that this timer has nothing to do with any Fallout games, however.

On top of that, I'm told that the Steam listings for Fallout 3 and New Vegas are showing some "activity" due to updates for localized versions of the existing games, and aren't to do with any impending "shadow drop" for Fallout 3 and New Vegas remakes / remasters.

Indeed, I'm told Fallout 3 and New Vegas remakes aren't exactly "imminent," and you shouldn't expect them in the near term. I'm still trying to lock down more detailed timings on when we should see them appear, but the impression I'm getting is that we'll see Fallout 3 remastered before New Vegas.

Microsoft and Bethesda seem to have both been caught a little unawares with regards to Fallout's explosive renewed interest and popularity. The Fallout TV show, Fallout 76 updates, and the Fallout 4 anniversary edition, coupled with its Xbox Play Anywhere tag, has led to a surge in players across all versions of the game.

As we all know, Bethesda has been pretty stretched. The studio is working on Elder Scrolls VI, which has an absolutely immense amount of hype and anticipation behind it. The team is also working on major updates for Starfield, too.

After Starfield, which arguably failed to meet some of the astronomical expectations set by games like Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I imagine Bethesda is keen to avoid similar criticisms. Fallout 4 itself also received a fair share of critique for its shift away from the franchise's gritty roleplaying roots, doubling down instead on its open world sandbox gameplay instead. And we all know what happened with Fallout 76's launch, even if it's rather awesome in its current state.

Bethesda lead Todd Howard noted that the studio is investing more than ever into the Fallout franchise in recent interviews, and also expressed support for the "shadow drop" marketing method for "smaller" projects like Oblivion. Parent subsidiary ZeniMax also shadow dropped Hi-Fi Rush and called it a success at the time too, although the studio and IP was eventually spun out to Krafton Inc. The gap between announcement and launch for Fallout 4 was quite short too, although the gap between announcement and launch for Starfield and Elder Scrolls VI has been notoriously long (and painful).

It's with that in mind that Fallout 5 is likely even further afield. I'm told that Starfield's big update this year represents a lot of technological upgrades for Bethesda's Creation Engine, many of which could also hint at capabilities we'll see in Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5.

In the short-term, though, Fallout fans will have to make do with the Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition, big ticket overhaul mods like Fallout London, ongoing updates to Fallout 76, and a bit later, remasters for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Which to be fair, is quite a lot really.

If I had to guess (emphasis on guess), I think we could see the Fallout 3 remaster at least this year. I imagine it will be similar to Virtuous' Oblivion remaster, with an Unreal Engine coat of fresh paint on top of the classic Creation Engine experience, albeit with tweaks and combat modernizations, potentially.

I'm still digging into details regarding a lot of this, locking down exact timings and the scope of the remasters, but I'm told emphatically not to expect them to shadow drop imminently. Could we see them around Xbox's annual June games showcase this year? Time will tell.

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