More details on Fallout 3 DLC

Lead producer of Fallout 3, Jeff Gardiner has announced some more info on the release of the DLC for the massively popular post-apocalyptic RPG.

As predicted it is indeed 800 Microsoft Points for each section, with around four-to-five extra hours of play, Gardiner informed IGN. Once the content has been downloaded it can be played no matter what level the player is at, as long as they’ve left Vault 101. You’ll be given a map marker and a quest objective to show you where to go.

Operation: Anchorage lets the player take part in a military simulation. This was set up by the government for counter-offensive training in case the Chinese ever decide to rise again and try to take America.

The setting for the scenario allowed the developers to do some interesting things with the rules of play; you will not be given access to your normal inventory, but will be  placed in a special Strike Team and given access to unique weapons, armor, tools and “exotic” gadgets.

You will be able to keep some of the gadgets that Operation: Anchor offers, and a special Covert Ops perk is available, along with a new set of achievements.

Operation: Anchorage takes place before the Fallout world was reduced to the wasteland we know, and therefore gives the players a “vastly different” landscape to experience. Gardiner tells us to expect plenty of snow and ice.

There were apparently a “massive amount” of art resources at the team’s disposal in the creation of the content, with landscape being created entirely from scratch. The team even created new animations and behaviors for the NPC’s interaction with the icy environment.

This change of direction for Fallout was deliberate, the team wanted to do things they didn’t do with the original release.

“It’s important to our team to use DLC as a way for us to flex our creativity, to try new things and answer the ‘wouldn’t have been cool if we did this?’ question that always comes up towards a games completion; when it’s too late to try them,” Gardiner stated.

“Don’t worry, we’re trying something a little different with all of our upcoming content so there will be plenty of the morally grey, multiple path quest lines everyone loves the franchise for.”

There are another two releases in the way of DLC, also set to arrive early next year, the first named The Pitt and the latter being Broken Steel.

The Pitt gives the player access to a post-apocalyptic, raider-run Pittsburgh, in which you’ll be forced to make a series of tough moral choices.

Broken Steel allows more play past the main quest’s completion, recruiting you into the Brotherhood of Steel to kill of the stragglers of the Enclave. This, as veterans of the wasteland will be happy to learn, will bring along a lift of the level cap,

Before any of this comes we will be seeing the release of a patch for Fallout 3 on all platforms.

“We are releasing an update for all versions of Fallout 3 prior to the release of [Operation: Anchorage]. We take pride in fixing issues that are found by our fans and posted in our forums,” Gardiner added.

There are still no plans to release any DLC on the PS3.

See our Fallout 3 hub for loads more content on the game.