Fallout 3 designer admits gunplay was "not good" — remaster expected to fix it

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Fallout 3 designer Bruce Nesmith previously shared his hopes that a remaster of the game would make the combat better than it was in 2008.

Last week, Bethesda dropped a load of info about its post-apocalyptic RPG series: Fallout 5 is "currently in preproduction," New Vegas developer Obsidian is returning to the series for a new entry, and Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are both getting remasters .

Granted, this felt a bit like jingling keys to distract from Microsoft 's massive wave of layoffs – something one workers' union has already called out – but it's naturally a very exciting prospect to fans.

Speaking to FRVR around the time The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered released in 2025, Nesmith shared his thoughts about a potential remaster of Fallout 3, admitting that the gunplay in the 2008 RPG is "not good."

"It didn’t hold up to shooters at the time," he explained, "a lot of work was done on that for Fallout 4."

And it's true, Fallout 4 did feel more akin to what would be a traditional first-person shooter of that era, making it so players didn't have to rely on the V.A.T.S. quite as much.

"I anticipate seeing a lot of that work [we did with Fallout 4] go into it [Fallout 3 Remastered]," Nesmith explained. And granted, Oblivion Remastered did make some changes to the combat compared to the 2006 original, namely giving new movesets to the melee weapons. So perhaps Bethesda will end up making the shooting in Fallout 3 (and New Vegas) feel more like Fallout 4.

Modders remastering Fallout 3 in Fallout 4 are not bothered by Bethesda's official version: "Our project has been a community-driven passion project for almost a full decade"