14 DAY TRIAL // After unveiling that it would collaborate with Obsidian to create Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda officially announced that Broken Steel, the last piece of downloadable content presented for the original Fallout 3, was set to arrive on both the Xbox 360 and the PC on May 5. It will cost 800 Microsoft Points or 10 dollars, which is not much for what the DLC pack has to offer.
When Bethesda initially announced the DLC program for Fallout 3, Broken Steel was set to be the most ambitious of its post release programs, dealing with many of the requests that players of the game made. The DLC should remove the game ending, which felt unfair and tacked on, in order to allow the player to send one of his/her companions in the irradiated chamber and to continue playing. Peter Hines said that “Broken steel doesn't have an ending. There are no more endings, we got the message.”
The area that Broken Steel will open up is set around the Andrews Air Force Base and the main quest will include working with the Brotherhood of Steel to reconstruct an awesome weapon that will tip the balance of power in favor of the organization. As always, players will have a lot of choices to make and they will also be able to see the effects of the choices made in the game proper, with the Washington Wasteland shaped by the way gamers played through Fallout 3.
Bethesda is also introducing new tougher enemies, which begin to appear once you reach level 18, including more powerful mutants and the Hellfire troops of the Enclave. To combat them, the player gets more weapons, an increase in the level cap to 30 and new perks, including one allowing Dogmeat to reincarnate.
Hopefully, the initial release of Broken Steel will not be plagued by the issues that hit The Pitt when it was launched and players will be able to enjoy a whole new piece of the Fallout universe.