Videogame star "Fallout 3" heading for Sin City

Videogame star "Fallout 3" is taking its devoted fans to nuclear war ravaged Las Vegas.

Bethesda Softworks on Thursday announced a "New Vegas" chapter in the award-winning franchise will be available by the end of this year. The studio posted a video trailer online at fallout.bethsoft.com.

" 'Fallout: New Vegas' takes all the action, humor, and post-apocalyptic grime and grit of this legendary series, and raises the stakes," Bethesda said in a release.

"Fallout 3" was crowned Game of the Year after its release in 2008 and proved so popular that Bethesda has expanded on it with adventures in an array of downloadable software.

A "Broken Steel" addition to "Fallout 3" even modified the end of the original game to resurrect the hero, who had sacrificed himself for the sake of other survivors in the post nuclear war scenario.

"Fallout 3" players start out as a youth venturing out of an underground survival bunker to search for a scientist father and make moral choices shaping his or her destiny.

Players take on quests such as freeing slaves, rescuing hostages, and integrating an elitist survivor settlement.

Conversations players have with in-world characters affect directions stories take, with choices regarding whether to do good or evil determining their reputations, opportunities and allies.