GamesRPGFalloutFan effort to recreate the lost Fallout 3 we never got from the original devs gets a big update, goes open-source, and you can finally find it on Nexus ModsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

GamesRPGFalloutFan effort to recreate the lost Fallout 3 we never got from the original devs gets a big update, goes open-source, and you can finally find it on Nexus ModsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: PJ Hexer and Co / Bethesda)

A shot of a figure in a repurposed power armour helmet, from Fallout Yesterday.

No game is as good as a game that never actually came out.Prey 2was going to be the ultimate open-world, bounty-hunting sandbox.Agentwould have been Rockstar at its best.Silent Hills? Don’t get me started on Silent Hills. The greatest horror game of all time. Probably. If it had actually, you know, happened.

Unreleased games are all potential and zero let-down, which probably explains why they continue to occupy so much space in all of our heads. Take, for example, Van Buren, the codename for a never-released version of Fallout 3 that was in development at the series' original studio, Black Isle. Even though many of its ideas later got recycled into Fallout: New Vegas, for plenty of stalwart fans it’s still an object of intense fascination: An alluring what-could-have-been.

It’s also a game that certain dedicated modders are determined to make real. That’s the case with Fallout Yesterday, a big rambling mod project that just got a meaty 0.6 update and a release onNexus Mods(viaDSOGaming). Unlike Revelation Blues, an attempt to create Van Buren inside New Vegas, Fallout Yesterday is going for the game as it would have been: An isometric RPG, and it’s in the same engine Black Isle used for Fallout 2.

Also, it adds “free-roaming caravans,” which is just neat. More games need little guys going about their business.

Heya mutants,we’ve added Fallout Yesterday v0.6 to Nexus Mods. If you are using the website, you can find us under Fallout 2’s Total Conversion category or directly here: https://t.co/t2zCmm6Q50 pic.twitter.com/jsDtqGL5nTJuly 9, 2024

Heya mutants,we’ve added Fallout Yesterday v0.6 to Nexus Mods. If you are using the website, you can find us under Fallout 2’s Total Conversion category or directly here: https://t.co/t2zCmm6Q50 pic.twitter.com/jsDtqGL5nTJuly 9, 2024

As an original Fallout lover, I’m eager to give this one a try. Even though wedidget a lot of Van Buren in the form of New Vegas—unquestionably the best 3D Fallout—there’s still part of me that wonders what Black Isle would have put out with the right time and money. We’ll never know, of course, but projects like this are pretty much as close as you can get without a time machine.

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