// PC GAMER — GAMING
We're probably not getting a new Fallout game until well into the 2030s, but that's no reason to stop talking about them
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That last mainline entry in the Fallout series, Fallout 4, was released in 2015. Fallout 5? That's most likely still half a decade away, if not more: Bethesda first needs to finish and release The Elder Scrolls 6, which is itself mostly likely still a few years away.
Sure, in the meantime we've had Fallout 76, and Microsoft has cracked the whip over the backs over what's left of Obsidian Entertainment to produce a Fallout something, but what's the earliest we'll be able to conceivably play Fallout 5? 2032? 2035? Could it really be 20 years between games in the main Fallout series?
Well, just because the best way to play some new Fallout is by watching the Amazon TV series while listlessly pressing controller buttons doesn't mean we should stop talking about Fallout. We here at PC Gamer impatiently rolled back that big Vault door to air out a few more thoughts about the RPG series.
I came in a bit late to Fallout. My first Fallout was Fallout 3, after Bethesda had taken the helm, so when I see people waxing nostalgic about the original Interplay Fallout, I can't really relate. What's stopping me from playing the original Fallout, or Fallout 2? Well, nothing. They're both on Steam. I have tried to get into them. But they're a bit clunky. Not instantly user-friendly. They're... ancient.
(Which is to say they're just a bit old and I've been very spoiled by modern games. I was late to The Elder Scrolls, too, so my first there was Oblivion, and even though I've tried going back to Morrowind to see what the big deal was, I run into the same problems.)
Now we've finally got confirmation that Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are getting remastered (thanks to Microsoft desperately trying to distract us from Microsoft's gutting of Bethesda and Obsidian Entertainment), but I don't particularly feel like either of those need a remaster as much as the original two Fallout games. Remaster Fallout 1 and 2 instead! They don't even need to be completely transformed, just update 'em, shine 'em up a bit. Make them run flawless and intuitively on Steam Deck, as a baseline. Then I'll finally play them, and I bet a lot of other newcomers to Fallout will too.
Normally I wouldn't bother with something called "hardcore mode" because I think the way people boast about things they've achieved while sitting alone in a darkened room is kind of masturbatory and weird. It took me until last year to replay New Vegas with hardcore mode turned on. I've been missing out.
For starters, it's not going to delete your save if you die or anything daft like that. It's more of a STALKER-style survival mode you can enable no matter which difficulty you're playing at. Sure, it means your companions are permanently dead if they drop, though you could just reload a save if that's a dealbreaker for you.
What it actually does is slow down healing and make eating, drinking, and sleeping mandatory. (Though you still don't need to sleep that much.) With penalties for eating raw meat there's a reason to engage with the cooking side of the crafting system, and a whole bunch of perks that you'd otherwise rarely bother with suddenly matter. If ammo has weight, maybe I should take Strong Back or Pack Rat? And if my companions can die, maybe I should give this power armor to Veronica rather than hogging it myself? Turns out, when bullets have weight, so do your decisions.