Fallout 3 and New Vegas Need Remastered Now More Than Ever

It has been a common question for nearly a decade now: why hasn't Bethesda remastered Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas for modern platforms? As arguably the two most popular entries in the series, both Fallout 3 and New Vegas helped establish Fallout as one of the most beloved gaming franchises in the world. Bethesda itself has since gone on to make Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, but these follow-ups haven't been held in as high of a regard when compared to the older entries. Now, with the Fallout TV series having released on Prime Video, there's more of a reason than ever before for Bethesda to dedicate the resources to bringing these games back. 

Perhaps the biggest motive for why this duo of Fallout titles needs to be remastered or remade is because they're getting harder to access as the years go by. Yes, both Fallout 3 and New Vegas are still relatively easy to play if you have a PC and they also happen to be forward compatible on Xbox consoles. For those who play games solely on PlayStation, though, these older entries are still completely locked to the PlayStation 3. This wasn't true a few years back when PlayStation Now still existed, but now it's the case for those who have a PS5 and PS4. 

Even if you do have the means of playing Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas with relative ease, though, both titles are more than starting to show their age. Fallout 3, in particular, came about very early in the day of high-definition gaming and could receive some pretty major graphical improvements. These Fallout games are both about 15 years old, which means that Bethesda could assumedly touch up the textures, fidelity, and performance of each without having to do a ton of legwork. 

From Bethesda's perspective, the primary reason that the publisher should look to explore remasters for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas is, well, money. Not only would longtime Fallout fans surely snatch up these new iterations of the classic open-world games at $60 (or more) a pop, but there's a good chance that the Prime Video TV adaptation will introduce the world of Fallout to a whole new audience for the first time. This is something that was also seen last year with HBO's The Last of Us and PlayStation ended up remastering or remaking both The Last of Us Part 1 and Part 2 as a result. 

Without spoiling anything the Fallout TV series also has some pretty overt connections to Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas more so than any other games in the franchise. These ties between the show and these games seem as though they're only going to grow deeper with Season 2, which has yet to be greenlit by Amazon just yet. Assuming that Season 2 does come about, though, F3 and New Vegas are going to be borderline required playing for anyone who wants to understand the lore and backstory of the world. 

No matter how you look at it, it's just obvious that now is the time that Bethesda needs to remaster Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. With such a long wait in store until the release of Fallout 5, Bethesda needs to find new ways to keep longtime fans (and new ones) engaged with the Fallout property. Prime Video's TV series now does a great job with this objective, but bringing back two of the most acclaimed Fallout titles ever would do even more to ensure that the franchise remains as relevant as ever in the years to come.