Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is a 2008 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game, which was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, is set in the Washington metropolitan area 200 years after a devastating nuclear war. The player controls a 19 year old character who leaves a fallout shelter in search of their missing father. Fallout 3 features a freely explorable open world, and the player can engage in combat with a variety of weapons. The player can also initiate conversations with non-player characters, and depending on their actions, can affect how other characters perceive them.

The third major installment in the Fallout series, it is the first game to be developed by Bethesda after acquiring the rights to the franchise from Interplay Entertainment. Lead designer and writer Emil Pagliarulo favored an oppressive and bleak atmosphere, and took inspiration from the dialogue in the first Fallout game. Executive producer Todd Howard wanted the combat to be a mix of real-time and turn-based combat, so that it would appeal to both first-person shooter fans and role-playing game fans. Bethesda chose the Washington metropolitan area as the setting, as the studio was based in Rockville, Maryland, a city close to Washington, D.C.

Fallout 3 received a number of Game of the Year awards, and is considered one of the best video games ever made. Critics praised Fallout 3's open-ended gameplay and flexible character-leveling system, and the game shipped almost five million copies in its first week. It received post-launch support, with Bethesda releasing five downloadable add-ons. The game was met with controversy in multiple countries: Australia's classification office initially refused the game over the recreational drug use and the ability to be addicted to alcohol and other drugs; players in India expressed cultural and religious sentiments over the mutated cattle in the game being called Brahmin, a varna (class) in Hinduism; and in the Japanese version, a questline involving the potential detonation of a nuclear bomb in a prominent town was heavily altered before release. The game was followed by a spin-off, Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment in 2010. The fourth major installment in the Fallout series, Fallout 4, was released in 2015.