Happy Thanksgiving everyone! As we spend time with our families — stuffing our bellies with turkey and watching the Lions get trounced by the TItans, we’d like to give thanks to all of you for supporting us. THANK YOU!

Below are some additional reasons we’re thankful this holiday season.

Todd Howard: Big thanks to everyone out there who supports our games. And to all my teammates, thanks for making work a joy. We’re so lucky to be able to make games we love to play.

Pete Hines: This year I am giving thanks for the great people I get to work with,
 Chick-fil-A, the start of college basketball season, Firefly vodka, Five
 Guys’ cheeseburgers, The Foo Fighters, finally having time to actually 
play games, and for having survived the last year and getting Fallout 3
 out the door.

Matt Killmon, Video Producer: Thanks to my family, friends, and loving girlfriend for bringing me back to this coast. Thanks to Bethsoft for giving me this job (and my friends in QA who suggested I apply). Thanks to my co-workers for being severely awesome and making my first six months here an absolute blast. And of course thanks to all our fans on YouTube, GameTrailers, and around the gaming web for all the positive comments on the trailers, gameplay demos, and other videos I worked on — the encouragement is appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Developers, Happy Holidays | 9 Comments »

With this week’s Elder Scrolls Modding Interview, we’re checking in with UK talent Timeslip…

How did you get involved with the Elder Scrolls modding community?
I have my uncle to blame for that, for leaving his copy out on his desk when I was visiting. I borrowed it for the evening, and a few lost hours later I’d already decided I was going to buy my own copy the next day. As it turned out, I was lucky enough to get the very last copy that my local games store had in stock. On installing it, I spotted the data files option in the launcher, visited the Elder Scrolls website to try and find out what it was for, spotted the modding forums, and things went downhill from there.

Until then I would often pick apart the data files from a game to see what I could change, but this was the first time I’d heard the term ‘modding’, or put any serious effort into it. I have to say that I’ve never regretted it for a second. Modding Bethesda games has become as much a part of the fun as playing them, if not more, and I specifically bought Oblivion and Fallout 3 with modding in mind.

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Community, Fallout, Fallout 3, Interview, Modding, Morrowind, Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls | 9 Comments »

Big news today! In a press release this morning, we announced the official editor for Fallout 3. Called the G.E.CK. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit), PC gamers will be able to mod Fallout 3 to their heart’s content. The G.E.C.K. will be free and available for download next month. More details to come.

We also announced three downloadable content packs for Fallout 3 — beginning with Operation: Anchorage, which will be available for download on Games for Windows LIVE and Xbox LIVE in January. In February and March, we’ll be releasing The Pitt and Broken Steel.

Below are descriptions for all three DLC packs:

• Operation: Anchorage – Enter a military simulation and fight in one of the greatest battles of the Fallout universe - the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. An action-packed battle scheduled for release in January.

• The Pitt – Journey to the industrial raider town called The Pitt, located in the remains of Pittsburgh. Choose your side. Scheduled for release in February.

• Broken Steel – Join the ranks of the Brotherhood of Steel and rid the Capital Wasteland of the Enclave remnants once and for all. Continues the adventure past the main quest. Scheduled for release in March.

To read the full press release, head over to the Fallout 3 Official Site.

Community, DLC, Fallout 3, G.E.C.K., Modding, press release | 70 Comments »

As I expected, the release of Left 4 Dead has taken the office by storm. Our crack team of Team Fortress 2 experts are trading in their roles as Medics, Engineers, and Medics for the thrill of playing as disturbingly awesome zombies — like Boomers, Smokers, Hunters, and Tanks.

Of course not everyone is spending every possible hour playing Left 4 Dead — team members continue to play through Far Cry 2, Fable 2, Gears of War 2, and more.

Here’s our rundown of everything we’re playing. Have a great weekend!

Jesse Tucker: Left 4 Dead, TF2, Dominion (Board game, very nice).

Joel Burgess: L4D, Far Cry 2, Netflix on NXE!

Daryl Brigner: Left 4 Dead (PC) all weekend.

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At the Office, Developers, What We're Playing | 12 Comments »

This week, our friends at Splash Damage have a new developer Q&A with Luis ‘Leftie’ Alvarado. A fan of painting and composing in his free time, here’s a look at his job at Splash Damage:

What do you do at Splash Damage?

I’m a Graphics Programmer at Splash Damage and, basically, my main task is keeping things up and running on console. This usually involves refactoring or implementing new specific code to get graphics features from the PC version working, multi-threading stuff to avoid nasty fights between the renderer and the rest of the world (and the game itself, even) and is generally loads of fun. From time to time I also get to write some shaders to break things up a bit.

We’ll continue to keep you guys updated on what’s happening at Splash Damage, and when the time comes, we’ll share details on what we’re working on with them.

Developers, Q&A, Splash Damage | No Comments »

There’s a new Wasteland Stories diary, entitled On the importance of a keen eye, up today at Planet Fallout. In this entry, Blinzler discusses the benefits of keeping your peeled — cause you never known what you’re going to find if you scour the Capital Wasteland.

To read the other Wasteland Stories, head to Planet Fallout’s editorial page.

Community, Dear Diary, Fallout 3 | 2 Comments »

Had a couple folks at the office forward me this Fallout 3-inspired comic from Tim Buckley at Ctrl+Alt+Del. Check it out and tell us what you think.

Around the Web, Comic Strip, Fallout 3 | 9 Comments »

Welcome back to another look at Fallout 3 coverage from around the web.

We’ll start with a few interesting articles I’ve read this week. Before reading these, be warned there are spoilers within these articles. Up first, GamesRadar’s Tyler Wilde has a three-page feature detailing how you can become “evil” within the game. Rather than just looking at things from the dark side, D. Riley at The New Gamer discusses morality issues from both sides — focusing on Tenpenny Tower quests. Meanwhile, at GamaSutra, Duncan Fyfe shares his opinion of the game while sharing what he believes the game signifies. Here’s a snippet:

“On your tour of D.C., you’re made to revisit all the initial promise inherent in that document, while you’re picking up the pieces and kicking around the ashes. The buildings stand remarkably intact, frozen in time, for you to look up at and think about how this all went to hell.”

Moving along, last week we let you know that Pete and Emil would be answering questions for their old friends at The Adrenaline Vault. That podcast (#8) is now available here. In other podcast news, there’s a new interview with Pete at Gamers with Jobs. To hear Pete, tune in around the 38-minute mark.

More reviews are showing up online for Fallout 3. You can check out new reviews at Gaming Life, GameFlak, Heroes of Gaming, GameZone, VideoGameMedia, and Aeropause. On the subject of reviews, Fallout 3’s reviews at IGN helped it earn Game of the Month honors on both PC and Xbox 360.

Having trouble finding all the Bobbleheads in the game? Check out this guide to locating all 20 at GamesRadar.

That’s all the news for now.

Around the Web, Awards, Fallout 3, Modding, Op/Ed, Reviews, podcast | No Comments »

It’s been more than six years since The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was released, yet the game continues to have a strong following — largely because of the dedicated modding community for the game. To help preserve the many mods that have been made for the game, BGS forum member Fliggerty has opened a new site, Morrowind Modding history, to help preserve current mods, as well as ones that have gotten lost over the years.

Check out the page here, and if you’ve got a long lost Morrowind mod, feel free to contribute it to the site.

Community, Modding, Morrowind | No Comments »

While there are plenty of games out there to be played, Gears of War 2 is getting a lot of talk around the office — particularly for its incredibly addictive Horde mode. This week I lost a fair amount of sleep time battling the horde late into the night with fellow co-workers. 

In addition to Gears 2, many are preparing to be zombified by Left 4 Dead — playing the demo over and over. Coming from Valve, this game could become the biggest craze at the office since Team Fortress 2.

Here’s the full rundown of what we’re playing…

Ryan Lea:  Fallout 3 or Gears of War 2.

Chris Esko, Gameplay Programmer: Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Castle Crashers, Dead Rising, Wii Sports.

Fred Zeleny, Dogmeat Wrangler: Enjoying Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Rock Band 2, Left 4 Dead demo, but somehow finding all of my time going into Incredibots.

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At the Office, Developers, What We're Playing | 13 Comments »