It will require a mandatory Steam install, but it will be playable offline

Jun 9, 2010 14:41 GMT  ·  By

Bethesda has decided to implement Steamworks in the PC version of Fallout: New Vegas and drop Games for Windows Live altogether. This means that the PC owners who buy Obsidian's next title will have to install Steam to get it to work. The reason the publisher gave for this move was that it was the most unobtrusive and light DRM solution out there. Steam will also be used for achievements and other features.

Nick Breckon, community manager at Bethesda, detailed the DRM, saying that, “Yes, you will have to install Steam when you install Fallout: New Vegas if you don’t already have it. And yes, you will have to be online at the time of that initial install. However you can install the game on as many systems as you want (with no restrictions), and you do not have to be online to play the game after your initial activation.”

Other advantages of the Steamworks implementation in Fallout New Vegas were highlighted by Breckon, as he continued to comment that, “Not only that, but once the game has activated on Steam, you can throw out the game DVD entirely and just download the game over Steam. If you don’t even have a DVD drive, you can just take the CD-Key from the box, enter it into Steam, and download it without ever using the disc at all.”

Breckon promised that this would not hurt the modding scene at all, as amateur developers would be able to create and distribute their mods as they had done before and would also be able, probably, to distribute them more easily through Steam. Fallout: New Vegas is the latest game in the Fallout series and it is developed by Obsidian Interactive. Story-wise, it has nothing to do with Fallout 3, but the graphics engine and many of the mechanics are borrowed from Bethesda's last effort. It will expand on the VATS system, and it will introduce a better dialogue and a reputation system akin to what was present in the venerable Fallout 2. New Vegas will be released this fall for the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC.