Sure, Fallout 4 didn’t make any kind of appearance on the E3 show floor (or in any of the publisher’s presentations) but that doesn’t mean Bethesda doesn’t have some Fallout games for you. The publisher announced on its blog that the original apocalyptic RPGs would finally be coming to Steam – legitimately.
Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics are available now at $9.99 a pop (or $20 for all three) after a years-long licensing tangle between original publisher Interplay and current license holder Bethesda kept the games from being sold legitimately online. All the way back in January, Malik reported that Bethesda was promising fans that they would get the games online, but it’s been quiet over the six months since that announcement.
The Steam release will support cloud saves with both classic and updated visuals for Fallout and Fallout 2. Windows 8 users beware: Fallout Tactics isn’t supported by the OS, so you might need to find a workaround to get it running. The direct multiplayer is supposed to be functional, though.
This will have to tide us over until Bethesda announces whatever its eventual next step is for the franchise. It’s been four years since New Vegas hit consoles and the PC, and Bethesda has kept pretty quiet about where the series is going (although rumors say it’s Boston). Presumably, the studio would want to take advantage of that shiny new idTech 5 engine they own to pretty up Fallout 4 for new consoles and the PC, and building a game from the ground up with a new-ish engine takes time.
The original Wasteland team is about to release Wasteland 2 in August, so if you liked the true original, check it out at http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/