There are five packs of downloadable content (DLC) for the Bethesda action role-playing video game Fallout 3. Each package of downloadable content adds new missions, new locales to visit, new non-player characters to encounter, and new items to use. Of the five, Broken Steel has the largest effect on the game, altering the ending, increasing the level cap to 30, and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line. The 2009 Game of The Year edition of Fallout 3 includes the full game and all five pieces of downloadable content.
The downloadable content was originally only available for Xbox Live and Games for Windows. Although Bethesda had not offered an explanation as to why the content was not released for PlayStation 3, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian speculated that it may have been the result of an exclusivity deal with Bethesda by Sony's competitor, Microsoft. When asked if the PlayStation 3 version would receive an update that would enable gameplay beyond the main quest's completion, game director Todd Howard responded, "Not at this time, no". However, in May 2009, Bethesda announced that the existing DLC packs (Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel) would be made available for the PlayStation 3; the latter two (Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta) were initially planned to release for all platforms simultaneously, but ended up releasing on Xbox and GFWL several months in advance before PS3.
Operation: Anchorage Operation: Anchorage is the first Fallout 3 downloadable content pack and takes place in a virtual reality "military simulation" in the main game where the protagonist, the Lone Wanderer, is stripped of their equipment and is forced to use provided replacements. The content focuses on the Liberation of Anchorage during the Sino-American War in 2077. The pack contains several new quests, new items, and adds four new achievements. Gameplay within the simulation is different than the main game; health and ammo are replenished by supply stations in certain areas of the simulation world, items functionally do not suffer from decay, and enemy corpses disappear instead of allowing the player to loot them for supplies.
Operation: Anchorage was released in North America and Europe on January 27, 2009 on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live. Although the content was scheduled for release on the PlayStation 3 in June 2009, the final week of June's PlayStation Store updates did not include it. Bethesda released information suggesting that the delay was due to their desire to iron out all of the bugs before release as well as test compatibility between DLCs. Operation: Anchorage, along with The Pitt, were released on October 1, 2009, for PS3.
Plot In the mid-21st century, vital economic and industrial resources, including food, uranium, and petroleum, began to run out worldwide. In 2066, the People's Republic of China desperately invaded Alaska and occupied Anchorage in order to capture the United States' oil reserves, starting the Sino-American War. The US fully liberated Alaska during the Battle of Anchorage in early 2077, prior to their counter-invasion of the Chinese mainland. A virtual reality simulation depicting the battle, designed to prepare American soldiers for live combat, was created prior to the eruption of the Great War later that year.
Two centuries later, a detachment of Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts are attempting to acquire a stash of advanced technology in a pre-war government bunker beneath Bailey's Crossroads, but the armory requires a special code to unlock, which can only be obtained from the Anchorage simulation. The Outcasts cannot access it because an external interface device, the Lone Wanderer's Pip-Boy, is required. After the player is drawn to the area by a distress signal sent by the Outcasts and assists them in fighting off attacking super mutants, they are recruited to complete the simulation in return for a share of the reward.
In the simulation, the player is tasked with fighting the Chinese in various scenarios, such as clearing out bunkers in the cliffside, raiding stations and bases, and finally disrupting a massive forcefield before advancing on their base and defeating the enemy general, Jingwei, in single combat. Once the simulation is complete, the player gains access to the armory and the advanced technology it contains. Upon opening the door and claiming their reward, an argument ensues between Protector McGraw and Defender Sibley, the latter of whom revolts and betrays the former for sharing the equipment with the Lone Wanderer. The player can fight alongside McGraw, Specialist Olin, and their loyalists or leave them to die at the hands of Sibley and his rebels. Either way, the revolting Outcasts must be killed or evaded.
Reception Both the PC and the Xbox 360 version of the Operation: Anchorage DLC received mixed reviews from critics, averaging a 67 and a 69 respectively at Metacritic. Several reviewers criticized Operation: Anchorage for being too expensive for the content provided. Play.tm's Richard Bright and other reviewers were disappointed overall, with Bright stating "this episode was a little disappointing for me personally." Game Over's Phil Soletsky was particularly critical of the expansion's story, saying "I had been hoping that the liberation of Alaska would be a massive affair involving battalions of soldiers hammering away at each other." IGNs Erik Brudvig gave high praise to the new weapon, the Gauss rifle, calling it "freakin' awesome". Reviewers also criticized the shift to a focus on action gameplay, instead of the more varied gameplay that Fallout 3 had.
The Pitt The Pitt is the second downloadable content pack. It allows the player to journey to the remains of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now an industrial raider-controlled city known as the Pitt. The pack features several new weapons, new armor and clothing items, four achievements and around four to five hours of gameplay. The Pitt was released on March 24, 2009, on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live, but was quickly removed due to severe glitches in the gameplay which made the Xbox 360 version of the expansion unplayable. Further investigation was performed by Bethesda and Microsoft, and on March 25, 2009, the expansion was again uploaded to Xbox Live, and was made available once more that afternoon. For those who downloaded it on March 24 in the morning, glitches were still apparent. A new version was available on Xbox Live on April 2, fixing freezing issues many players had encountered with the previous version. A retail disk was released at the end of May 2009 containing this and the Operation: Anchorage downloadable content. It was released for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows. The downloadable content is copied to the hard drive and functions as it would have had it been downloaded. This pack was released for the PlayStation 3 at the same time as Operation Anchorage on October 1, 2009.
Plot
Following the Great War, the radiation from nuclear fallout mixed with the unique industrial toxins and pollutants from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's pre-war factories, creating the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion (TDC) and resulting in both the overall decay and inhospitality of the region. Consequently, the inhabitants suffer from extreme radiation poisoning. Some unlucky survivors slowly regress mentally into crazed individuals known as wildmen, before eventually degenerating further and becoming mindless dwarfed creatures called trogs.
Around 30 years before the Lone Wanderer leaves Vault 101 and begins their journey, Star Paladin Owyn Lyons led a Brotherhood of Steel expedition to Pittsburgh, now known as the Pitt. After witnessing its state — being filled with marauding gangsters, rapists, and killers preying on the innocent — he ordered a large-scale assault, destroying the raider forces occupying the city and killing anything that put up a fight. This event is chronicled as "the Scourge". One Brotherhood member, Initiate Ishmael Ashur, was believed killed and the only casualty, having been buried under rubble and ultimately left behind. In reality, Ashur survived due to his power armor protecting him from being crushed, before being dug up by a family of scavengers. In the following decades, he would go on to form an army of raiders and conquer the Pitt, using slave labor and the pre-war industrial infrastructure to begin rebuilding the city. As such, the entire non-wildman and non-trog population are either slaves or overseers.
The Lone Wanderer is informed of the Pitt from a distress broadcast by a man named Wernher, an escaped slave who asks for their help in liberating the other slaves there. The player enters the city as a slave and works their way to freedom by partaking in gladiator fights, which earns them a meeting with Ashur. They learn that his infant daughter, Marie, possesses a natural immunity to radiation and TDC, and he is studying her to develop a cure. It is revealed that Wernher was formerly Ashur's right-hand man and lieutenant, before being enslaved for attempting to usurp him. The player is then given the choice of siding with either Wernher or Ashur, aiding the slave uprising or quelling it. Unlike other decisions in Fallout 3, there is no karmic penalty or reward for choosing either side, as each have both good and bad aspects.
Reception The Pitt received generally positive reviews, averaging a score of 77 for the PC version and 76 for the Xbox 360 version. When initially released, the Xbox 360 version had a corrupt file which caused technical issues and rendered the DLC unplayable. On April 3, 2009, Bethesda Softworks reported that they had uploaded a new version of The Pitt which fixed these problems. The PC version of The Pitt had the same problem, leading modders to upload a community patch to provide a temporary fix until Bethesda patched the PC release.
Broken Steel Broken Steel is the third and most significant downloadable content pack, altering the original ending of Fallout 3 and allowing the player to continue playing past the end of the main quest line. If the player personally activates Project Purity, their character no longer dies but instead wakes up after a two-week coma to officially join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and help rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave once and for all. The pack raises the game's level cap from 20 to 30. It includes three main quests and three side-quests. Three Dog has new dialogue in this expansion, but no new songs are added to the radio.Gamephoton 19 May 2009. Retrieved on 2009-19-05
Broken Steel was released on May 5, 2009, on Xbox Live and Games for Windows Live. It was quickly removed from GFWL due to bugs which made the PC version of the expansion unplayable, and rereleased two days later. Some Xbox 360 users reported a bug that prevented them from activating Project Purity, resulting in the plot elements added by the DLC being inaccessible. PC users reported that changes caused by Broken Steel and the 1.5 patch adversely affected mods.
This pack was the first released for PlayStation 3 due to it being the most requested DLC for Fallout 3. This is primarily due to the continuation of the story past the game's original ending, and for the raise in the level cap from level 20 to 30, as many complained that the cap could be reached far too quickly in playing the game's main campaign. Bethesda announced on their website that "The first DLC for PlayStation 3, Broken Steel, [was] made available on September 24 in English territories and will be followed by the release of Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt on October 1 and Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta on October 8."
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