In the past year or so, we’ve seen some big mergers and acquisitions in the gaming industry. Activision and Blizzard’s merger was the big news, but there have been others. Today, another newsworthy acquisition was announced.

ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, has acquired id Software. This acquisition puts franchises like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Doom, Quake, and RAGE under one roof. The best news out of all of this is that all of the principals at id Software have signed long term contracts, meaning that id will continue to operate under the same management going forward.

In discussing the deal, id Technical Director and industry icon John Carmack said, “This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward. We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

So, what sort of speculation can we make because of this deal? Bethesda games driven by id engines? That would seem to be a logical step, wouldn’t you think? What do you think this news means to the future of the two companies?

You can read the full text of the press release after the break.

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Fallout 3 is one of those games I can’t stay away from too long.. like Oblivion before it I seem to find myself wandering the DC Metro Wasteland listening to Three Dog’s howl whenever my game review plate thins out a bit. So far Bethesda is keeping up its usual excellent job of supporting their games in the post release cycle with expansions and new content. While the nightmare of Horse Armor may never be forgotten, the content for Fallout 3, including the Broken Steel add-on which removed the games original ending and raised the character level cap, is going a long way toward expanding the game in different ways while not really diluting the core experience of its scripted story.

The latest expansion, Point Lookout, concerns a rural Maryland area in the post apocalyptic world and invites the players to uncover a smaller scale story surrounding some swamp dwellers, cultists and even a steamboat. While the overview for the expansion sounds a bit “Call of Cthulhu” like, another licensed world Bethesda has played around with in the past, one of the most striking thing is the encroachment of more plants and trees into the Fallout 3 setting. Joel Burgess and Nathan Purkeypile, the add-on’s Lead Designer and Lead Artist respectively detailed the evolution of the Point Lookout concept in a recent blog post on the official Fallout website.

With Point Lookout, one of our primary goals was not to create just a quest, but a whole new region for players to explore. Straight away we knew that we wanted to focus on what we felt was one of the great strengths of Fallout 3 –a world too full of stories and surprises, ripe for exploration and adventure.  For us, the world is a main character, and choosing our location was intrinsically tied to the tone of the content.

We knew what kind of geographical features we wanted to showcase, and began scouting real-world locations. We stumbled across the perfect place: Point Lookout, MD. This rural location is situated on the southern tip of Maryland where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay. The coastal lowland offered the setting that we wanted, and the area has a rich history that we were able to pull inspiration from. The founders of Maryland landed here, a Civil War camp held over 50,000 confederate prisoners, and the Point Lookout Lighthouse is purported to be one of the most haunted places in Maryland.  All this just down the Potomac River, which runs through the Capital Wasteland.

I’ve included some of the recently released screenshots and frankly while Broken Steel might have been about expanding the ending of the game, Point Lookout seems to promise an interesting side trek with some content aside from generic feral ghouls and armored Enclave drones.

You can check out the shots after the jump.

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Been playing Fallout 3 on your PS3 and wishing you could get your hands on the DLC? Well, wish no more.

Bethesda announced today that they are bringing all the current and upcoming Fallout 3 DLC to the PS3. Operation Anchorage is slated to hit the PlayStation Store sometime in June, with The Pitt and Broken Steel following along at 4-6 week intervals.

In addition to the existing DLC, PS3 owners can look forward to the two new DLC packs that were announced as well. First up is Point Lookout, a massive swampland full of new quests. Point Lookout is scheduled to hit XBox Live and Games for Windows Live in June, and on the Playstation Store after the first three DLC packs are available.

More DLC information, as well as a retail Fallout 3 announcement, after the break

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Today is the release of the highly anticipated third DLC add on for Bethesda’s Fallout 3. Turns out that early reports from the Fallout 3 forums show that the mistakes made during the recent launch of The Pitt DLC may not have been corrected after all. It seems that at least some members of the Fallout 3 community are reporting problems with the PC version of the content through the Windows Live download store. Reportedly the developers at Bethesda are already on the case with possible issues including a glut of downloads causing server issues and other unconfirmed issues. Best bet might be to hold off on downloading the add-on for a few days to let them work out the kinks.

This is a rough time for the guys in Maryland and it seems they can’t catch a break with the Fallout downloads but oddly these sorts of issues didn’t really creep up during the Oblivion expansions so we’ve seen that the Bethesda of the past can handle digital releases.

Fans of Fallout 3, like myself, have been anxiously waiting for this update to the core game. Unlike the previous two releases - Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt, Broken Steel is meant to remove the hard story-based ending of the original Fallout 3 and adds new continued quests featuring the Brotherhood of Steel, new weapons, a new level cap increase, new perks and achievements as well.

Update: Apparently this seems to be an issue with Games for Windows Live!’s DRM functions though there are now sporadic reports of 360 owners experiencing a different Broken Steel issue. Bethesda won’t catch a break even if it is a Microsoft issue.. after its their game on the front line of this and The Pitt left a bad taste in many people’s mouths.

You can watch the Fallout 3: Broken Steel trailer after the jump.
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Are you a huge Elder Scrolls fan? Did you ever want to know about the worlds surrounding games like Daggerfall, Arena, Morrowind, and Oblivion? If so, Bethesda is taking steps to give you exactly what you want.

In a press release, Bethesda announced today that they have reached an agreement with Del Ray Books to publish two novels based on the Elder Scrolls series. While two books doesn’t sound like a lot of room to detail the massive world and events of the Elder Scrolls series, you can bet that if these two sell well, there will be plenty more to follow.

I have to admit that I’m fairly interested by this idea. I enjoy reading fantasy novels, as my groaning bookshelves will attest. As I’ve always enjoyed Bethesda’s offerings, I will probably be first in line to pick up some of these as well.

Of course the big question is this: Who’s writing these novels? Find out, and get more details on the first of these two novels after the break.

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Now that G.E.C.K. has been out a while, No Mutants Allowed has issued an update of its growing inventory of Fallout 3 mods. The biggest changes are to the popular The Fallout 3 Compendium mod which has had a huge update to v 0.6.0.2. The Item Description mod also continues to go and is up to v 1.15.

There are also several new mods in the NMA Fallout 3 stable:

• Medicine And Edibles Revamped - changes drug effects and addictions to suit the originals more closely
• Unique Zhu-Rong v418 Pistol - retextures and modifies a unique weapon
• Obedient Dogmeat mod - modifies interfacing with Dogmeat and makes him a lot smarter

New mods are also available on Fallout 3 Nexus. For all the details visit the NMA Fallout 3 forum.

The PS3 is getting a Fallout 3 patch which adds trophy support. Update (v1.10) also fixes a number of troublesome issues like problems with Friend Notification. Fallout 3 will prompt you to download the update the next time you log on. It’s only 24MB so it shouldn’t take too much time out of your gaming schedule.

The update is only approved for the English language version of Fallout 3 in the U.K. and U.S. but Bethesda expects additional language patches to be ready to go soon. Updates for the PC and Xbox 360 are also on their way.

The November NPD numbers are in for PC titles for the month, and it should come as no surprise that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is on top–as a matter of fact it takes the top two spots out of the Top 20. If you look through the whole chart though, you will notice that World of Warcraft took five spots which is an indication that its popularity shows no wane in sight.

Call of Duty: World at War for the PC came in third, with Spore still pulling in the gamers and resting at number four, and Left 4 Dead took the number 8 spot which is a decent slot considering the PC powerhouses that are present on the chart.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Collector’s Edition
3. Call of Duty: World At War
4. Spore
5. Fallout 3
6. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
7. The Sims 2 Deluxe
8. Left 4 Dead
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life Expansion Pack
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
11. World of Warcraft
12. The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Expansion
13. Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
14. EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey
15. Far Cry 2
16. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
17. BioShock
18. Spore Creepty & Cute Parts Pack
19. IGT Slots: Little Green Men
20. Assassin’s Creed

(Thanks Shacknews)

After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” - Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III - Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 - Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 - new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

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Fallout 3 modders rejoice for your tool set has arrived. Bethesda has released the Garden of Eden Creation Kit which will make it a lot easier for less experienced modders to create new content for Fallout 3 PC.

There are a couple of other instructional videos and a G.E.C.K. wiki to get you started. Just stop in to the Bethesda Blog for the rest of the videos on how to use G.E.C.K..

If you’re ready to try your hand at modding Fallout 3, head over to FileFront proper to download the Garden of Eden Creation Kit for yourself.