Bethesda and Virtuous Studios’ horrendously kept secret, Fallout 3 Remastered, is reportedly still in active development. Leaked alongside Oblivion Remastered in FTC documents years ago, the upcoming Unreal Engine 5 redux of the 2008 RPG is reportedly aiming to hit a particular bar of quality.

Now, I’m a big Bethesda defender—I’ll defend the Creation Engine, I think Starfield is a fairly enjoyable 7/10 (maybe 6), and I’ll pounce on someone who trash talks Morrowind, but reportedly Bethesda is hoping to make Fallout 3 Remastered “as well polished” as Oblivion Remastered. Now, I have some issues with that.

This claim comes from an article by The Verge which details Xbox’s plans for the next year, including a silly Summer release for Halo: Campaign Evolved, a Fall release for Gears of War: E-Day, and a new controller with some Wi-Fi gubbins for cloud gaming. Reported by the very accurate Tom Warren, this is likely all true, and the report claims Fallout 3 Remastered is still in “active development”.

“The game is still in active development, and I understand Bethesda is keen to ensure it’s as well polished as the surprise release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered last year,” the reporter wrote.

While Oblivion Remastered is extraordinarily polished on a visual side, and revised many mechanics from the original, it was a bit of a technical mess. The game’s core was still housed in a very old version of Gamebryo—which is not the same as Creation Engine, readers—and it caused some significant issues when moving between cells, the way Bethesda game worlds are split up.

Additionally, the game’s Unreal Engine 5 visuals were gorgeous, but also led to the same UE5 stuttering issues that plague almost every release using the engine. Even worse, none of these issues were fixed—or even made a bit better—as the last patch for Oblivion Remastered dropped on July 9, 2025… less than three months after the game’s release.

The lack of any support for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered has caused the game’s reception to drop to “mixed” on Steam. Additionally, the lack of patches may be why most players only spent around 15 hours in the RPG before turning it off and never playing it again.

Now, Fallout 3 is a bit of a simpler game than Oblivion Remastered. While it has the same bones, it has less NPCs wandering around the place, and it simply doesn’t have as much going on. However, I can already walk across the barren wasteland of Washington DC without my game becoming a stutter showcase, and I’m sure most players want Fallout 3 Remastered to not stutter like hell.

Fallout 3 Remastered does not currently have a release date, and has not been officially confirmed by Bethesda Game Studios.