Bethesda will allow Fallout 4 to be pre-downloaded before its release

Fallout 4 is going to be a really, really big game, which is bad news for those of us who intend to purchase a digital copy but don’t have the fastest Internet speeds. Fortunately, we’re not going to have to spend the first few hours of the game’s launch waiting for it to download, because Bethesda will allow users across all platforms to pre-load the game a few days before it actually launches. Naturally, this only applies to digital copies of the game, and will become available a few days before Fallout 4 launches, which is on November 10th.

Bethesda Softworks confirmed today that Fallout 4 will be preloadable ahead of its release on November 10, meaning you’ll be able to play the game the moment it goes live (or at least close to it) rather than having to wait for the whole thing to download first. “We can confirm that #Fallout4 will have pre-loading on Xbox One, PS4, and PC so you have a few days to download the game before 11/10,” Bethesda tweeted today. When the preload will begin hasn’t been revealed but Pete Hines, Bethesda’s vice president of PR and marketing, confirmed in a separate tweet that it will be within days of launch: “We will offer preloading for Fallout 4 on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Exact day/time TBA. All should be available a few days before launch day.” The preload period (preloadability?) is important because, while we don’t yet know exactly how big Fallout 4 will be, we do know that it’s going to be big: Bethesda recently cited the relatively small capacity of conventional DVDs compared to Blu-ray discs used by consoles as one reason for requiring the PC version to be partially downloaded from Steam, even when purchased on disc. Speaking of which, he also said that preloads for the physical release of Fallout 4 will not be available, and that as far as he knows there’s actually no such thing as preloading a disc-based game.