Fallout 3 DLC Detailed

David Gardiner, lead producer on Bethesda's Fallout 3, has added some meat to the bones of information already provided regarding the Xbox 360 and PC DownLoadable Content planned for January.

Costing 800 Points, the content (dubbed Operation Anchorage) will take around four or five hours to play through, according to Gardiner. It's due in January and will be followed by The Pitt in February and Broken Steel in March.

It drops players into a military simulation of the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska from its Chinese Communist invaders. “The Chinese Red Army is everywhere, and the player will first have to secure the surrounding mountain side and then fight their way into the Chinese base”, said Gardiner. “The player will have to use a lot of their standard combat skills, along with several new tools that will only be available in the downloadable content. These include interactive Strike Teams under the player's command and unique armor, weapons, and other exotic gadgets.”

In-game, the simulation exists as a creation of the government designed to test different counter-offensives against the red menace.

The player only has to have left the Vault to be able to play through the DLC and more seasoned players won't go in with too much of an advantage, since they'll have their resources stripped from them.

The DLC has a slightly different slant to the disc-based game. “Operation: Anchorage focuses mainly on a combat/stealth path”, said Gardiner. “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!”

He says that folk who love the style of the main game needn't be a-feared, however. “Don't worry, we're trying something a little different with all of our upcoming content so there will be plenty of the morally gray, multiple path quest lines everyone loves the franchise for.”

As well as new quests, the DLC will include fresh weapons, armour and achievements, as well as a new perk dubbed "Covert Ops". Players will be able to take the new goodies with them into the main game.

As it's set in the frozen tundra of Alaska, the DLC will have a very different art style to the rest of the game. Expect a “bright ice/snow colour pallet”.

An update to fix bugs will be released prior to the launch of the DLC, Gardiner confirmed.

Speaking about the level cap, Gardiner said that it will be increased in the third batch of DLC, titled Broken Steel and set for release in March.

So, that's what 360 and PC players get. PS3 users, however, get zip.

For more on Fallout 3, see SPOnG's review.

^{Source: IGN}