During an event to show off its third-party 2009 lineup, Bethesda also announced that a new Fallout title, Fallout: New Vegas (note the lack of a number, we’ll get to that later), will be released next year for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Following the surprise announcement of a new title so soon, the second surprise is that Bethesda is not developing the title. Instead, Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind Knights of the Old Republic II and Neverwinter Nights II (and its expansions), will be working on New Vegas. Note, no art was released of this title, so take the above screen, and pretend it has more tacky neon signs.

This is good news! Firstly I love Fallout, and while I haven’t yet had the chance to finish Fallout 3 (or for that matter spend much time playing it) I have finally decided to take the plunge and actually buy an Xbox 360. Secondly Knights of the Old Republic II was a great game, that was cut way too short. Thirdly, New Vegas sounds like a wicked place to set a Fallout game.

So I eagerly await more news on this title. But in the mean time read the full article here.

EDIT: There is another article, with much the same news, over at Game Spot.

So we set to making our characters and I decided on Dakota Absolute, a mildly psychotic woman with a talent for all things violent, a shot gun, a couple sharp knives and a big bike. I decided who would play Dakota if this were a movie and decided on Skin, the former singer for Skunk Anansie.

I’ve thought about her past a bit, but think it’s mostly going to be a bit mysterious. As Dakota said to Violet “The Waste gave birth to me and the Waste will kill me one day”.

Once that was done and while Jackie finished off her character (who started off as the medic and somehow turned into a whore named Violet… go figure…) I got stuck into the world a little. It seems our story is going to be based around a Mid-west town called Sweet Home, and it’s a as undetermined period of time since the nuclear apocalypse, but it’s been long enough the no one alive has any memory of the world before.

Sweet Home is a walled, guarded compound which has managed to claw it’s way back from near extinction after a devastating attack 20 years ago. Because of this attack it has a very strong militia which is why my character is able to be there. She’s after gas for her bike and this town (the closest thing to civilisation in this part of the world) has the ability to make some find of vegetable based petrol.

So after a bit of a kill or be killed obstacle course (there was surprisingly no killing) Dakota is now a member of the Sweet Home militia. She gets food, gas, a place to stay and can still roam the Waste killing things. She’s got it sweet, at the moment anyway!

The first session makes me think that this is going to shape up to be a fun game, with good strong, if utterly morally ambiguous, characters. I’m looking forward to the first proper session!