Alexander “Red888guns” Berezin just released a new trailer for Fallout: Bakersfield, an ambitious fan-led project to recreate the original 1997 RPG’s ghoul city in the GZDoom engine. Basically: boomer shooterFallout.
The trailer opens with what looks like classic FMV footage, but it’s all gameplay. Ghouls can be seen wandering about the ruins of Bakersfield (now called Necropolis), hobbling over barrel fires to warm their rancid flesh. Behind them, a completely devastated store is adorned with a crude ‘out of business’ plaque, almost mocking the destruction.
We see the Vault Dweller tear through enemies against this backdrop with a double-barreled shotgun, knife, and 10mm pistol, all while getting ready to throw hands with a cultist, entering what is no doubt Vault 12, and even conversing with a super mutant (don’t worry, the old clay-modelled talking heads are very much in-tact).
Fallout: Bakersfield Teases Release Date
This project has been a long time coming. First teased in 2020 onBerezin’s DeviantArt, it was originally called “Fallout3D”, but wasrebranded to ‘Bakersfield’ two years later in its first teaser. This brief one-minute clip showed the Vault Dweller beating up ghouls and blowing off their limbs with a super shotgun, giving us a taste of what a classic boomer shooter Fallout might look like.
We didn’t hear anything more from the project until last night’s new trailer, and most people assumed that Fallout: Bakersfield was abandoned. After all, it’s not unusual for hobbyist games of this scope to be dropped without warning, aswe’ve already seen with Fallout: Nuevo Mexicoandthe fan-made Fallout 1 remake. These projects take up so much of their volunteers' spare time, and drag on for years, that it’s hardly surprising so many burn out.
Project Arroyo is still working to remake Fallout 2 within Fallout 4, reimagining the classic isometric RPG as a modern-day Bethesda-style game.
However, with a new teaser in hand, that clearly isn’t the case for Bakersfield. In fact, the trailer even teases a release date — 2027. The number appears in a flash, before flickering to ‘2025’ and ‘202?’. Maybe we’ll see a demo released sometime later this year, followed by a full release in 2027. Either way, it looks like Bakersfield is finally nearing the finish line, and it’s shaping up to be, as commenter @ItsJabo put it, “the sickest Fallout project” we’ve ever seen.
