Bethesda revealed today that a new Fallout game is on the way. Fallout: New Vegas will be released next year for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

New Vegas will be developed by Obsidian Entertainment, who is also working on secret agent RPG Alpha Protocol. Obsidian was founded in 2003 by former members of Fallout and Fallout 2 developer Black Isle Studios. According to Bethesda, they developed the idea for New Vegas internally and then pitched it to Obsidian.

Though the announcement was light on gameplay details, New Vegas is said to be a role-playing game that will offer the "same sort of experience as what folks got in Fallout 3." Bethesda also stressed that Vegas is a standalone installment in the series and will not affect what Fallout 3 director Todd Howard and his team at Bethesda are doing.

"It is not a sequel to Fallout 3," said Bethesda VP Pete Hines. "It was just a great opportunity we thought to work with some guys who very clearly know Fallout--Feargus [Urquhart] and those guys were there in the early days of Fallout."