In addition to releasing a bunch of new screenshots for Fallout: New Vegas, Bethesda Softworks has also revealed a few more details about the game.

Described as a post nuclear role-playing game, Fallout: New Vegas sees players exploring the expanses of the desert wastelands from “the small towns dotting the Mojave Wasteland to the bright lights of the New Vegas strip.”

The game promises to deliver ‘feuding factions, colourful characters and a host of hostiles” as a war between rival factions brews, the consequences of which threatens to change the lives of New Vegas inhabitants. Players will meet up with characters, creatures, allies and foes, with every choice determining the outcome.

Fallout: New Vegas will include a couple of new features, such as the Companion Wheel that streamlines directing your companions, a Reputation System that will track the consequences of your actions and the Hardcore Mode. In addition Special melee combat moves have been added and players will be able to use V.A.T.S. to pause time in combat, target specific body parts of enemies and queue up attacks.

You’ll also be able to jump right into the action with finely-tuned real-time combat mechanics, wielding double the amount of weapons found in Fallout 3 and making use of the new weapons configuration system to modify weapons.

Fallout: New Vegas is currently in development at Obsidian Entertainment and is scheduled to be released this autumn for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

A brief description of the game follows below:

“Welcome to Vegas. New Vegas.

It’s the kind of town where you dig your own grave prior to being shot in the head and left for dead…and that’s before things really get ugly. It’s a town of dreamers and desperados being torn apart by warring factions vying for complete control of this desert oasis. It’s a place where the right kind of person with the right kind of weaponry can really make a name for themselves, and make more than an enemy or two along the way.

As you battle your way across the heat-blasted Mojave Wasteland, the colossal Hoover Dam, and the neon drenched Vegas Strip, you’ll be introduced to a colorful cast of characters, power-hungry factions, special weapons, mutated creatures and much more. Choose sides in the upcoming war or declare ‘winner takes all’ and crown yourself the King of New Vegas in this follow-up to the 2008 videogame of the year, Fallout 3.

Enjoy your stay.”