Life in the Capital Wasteland is about to change for the Lone Wanderer from Vault 101 thanks to a genuine alien abduction. Bethesda has unveiled the first screenshots for Mothership Zeta, the next Fallout 3 DLC, rife with imagery of robots, spaceships, and laser guns that will undoubtedly go "pew pew pew." Previous Fallout 3 DLC releases have taken players to the steel mills of Pittsburgh, coastal marshes, and even a virtual reality version of Anchorage, Alaska, to the conflict that led up to the global thermonuclear war responsible for the "Fallout" setting. Mothership Zeta casts off Fallout 3's terrestrial shackles and takes things into outer space.

These robots messed with the wrong Earthling.

Mothership Zeta will lead players up and out of the planet's irradiated atmosphere by broadcasting an alien signal to anyone who just happens to have a Pip Boy 3000 strapped to their arm and 800 MS points to spare. Loot junkies will be on the lookout for new weapons like the Alien Atomizer, Alien Disintegrator, and Drone Cannon, as well as new outfits like the Gemini-Era Spacesuit and Samurai Armor. To collect this stuff you'll need to blast away robot drones, alien invaders, and of course their horrible experiments. Just don't end up on the wrong end of those alien probes when the DLC is released on August 3rd.

In space, no one can hear you activate VATS.



Gerald says: I found this "key feature" from the announcement quite interesting: "Ally yourself with an unexpected array of characters, both from the Capital Wasteland and from Earth's past." Intriguing! What famous characters can we expect to find as part of an alien abduction storyline? Jimmy Hoffa, the Lindbergh Baby? Amelia Earhart would fit the bill, but her plane (and skeleton) was featured in Fallout Tactics, and that sort of continuity error could tear apart the space-time continuum, while also causing several message boards to implode.

Fallout 3's DLC (I've reviewed 'em all) have gotten progressively better with each new release. From these screens, Mothership Zeta looks like it's focusing on the '50s pulp science-fiction aesthetic side of the Fallout universe, which is as much a part of the setting as the themes of Americana in ruins and survival in a post-apocalyptic society.