Fallout 4 Discs Confirmed Not To Have All Game Content, Require Steam Download

Today we’re learning some additional information about the PC version of Fallout 4. Pete Hines, Bethesda Marketing Vice President, took to Twitter to explain that the DVDs shipping with the PC version of the game won’t be enough to actually get you right into the action. The installation DVDs will only contain a portion of the files necessary to play the game. 

You will be required to connect to (and authenticate through) Steam to download additional installation files in order to start blasting away in a post-apocalyptic Boston. The reason for this hybrid installation method is twofold. First of all, the DVDs included don’t hold nearly as much data as the Blu-ray storage medium used on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

The second reason, and likely primary reason for the Steam authentication, is to combat piracy. Given the hype factor inherent with a new Fallout title, we can understand Bethesda’s wishes to clamp down on piracy — and this method will definitely go a long way towards achieving that goal, even if it inconveniences gamers just a tiny bit. 

Last week, Bethesda gave us a pretty awesome live-action trailer for Fallout 4 set to the song “The Wanderer.” It was also revealed earlier this month that Bethesda is requiring a rather stout PC if you want to run Fallout 4 at maximum detail settings. If you want to get the most of the game, you’re going to need a 3.6GHz Core i7 4790 processor, 8GB of RAM and at least an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 graphics card.