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Early Tuesday we had the opportunity to swing by the Bethesda booth (the first official stop at E3), where Jeff Gardiner was kind enough to guide us through a portion of the Point Lookout DLC. It seems that several changes have been made from the previous packs, the first being the fact that although you take a ferry to the swamplands of Point Lookout, you are free to travel between there and the D.C. Wastes as often as you please. The artistic style gives a very distinct impression, featuring a dilapidated Victorian style mansion and crumbling lighthouse near where you leave the docks.
Tighten up your boots and jump off the boat for the rest of our hands-on preview.
Moving past the marshy grasses and up the hill towards the house, making out more details in the parting fog, the DLC really draws you in by providing a setting that is every bit unique as Operation Anchorage or The Pitt. While we can grumble over the fact that our companions still can’t join us, entering that mansion in pursuit of your first quest quickly leaves those thoughts behind. You are greeted by a ghoul named Desmond who needs immediate assistance.
 Apparently some freakish cult (which you can choose to help or hinder), composed of re-textured raiders and new, disfigured “hill people,” are attempting to break in and it is up to you to stop them. Running through the old house feels like a scene straight out of the first Resident Evil, with the same hectic action and scare moments of enemies busting through windows, falling in from crumbling ceilings and even busting through walls like some Valve directed horde.
Our hands on time ended shortly thereafter, with Gardiner’s promise that this single quest alone takes “around twenty to thirty minutes to complete.” Having only just scratched the surface of the swamps, Point Lookout seems to have significantly more to do and see than any other DLC thus far (the overland map was decidedly larger than any of the previous downloaded areas).
With the enemies all wielding time period appropriate weapons such as a double barreled shotgun, lever action rifle and woodsman’s axe, expect to see some unique looking weapons to pick up and use. Beyond the new loot, perhaps the best news of all is confirmation that level thirty wanderers will be able to reap all the benefits of any new perks: as Gardiner put it, not only are all the new included perks quest related, “some perks you’ll have to find,” as well. This gave the distinct impression that exploring off the beaten path could yield some significant rewards. If that doesn’t reignite your wasteland wanderlust, nothing will.
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