The New Vegas remake of the Fallout 3 that never was just got its first demo, not to be confused with the straight-up remake of the cancelled Fallout 3 or, indeed, Fallout 3

Male and Female Vault Dweller holding guns and cresting a hill with ruined city in background.

First reported by DSO Gaming, the United West Team modding group has released its first demo for Revelation Blues, an attempt to tell the story of Black Isle Studios' canceled Fallout 3 project, code named Van Buren, as a mod for Fallout: New Vegas. Van Buren has a deep connection to New Vegas' story, and even before 2010, was a bit of a "what might have been" source of fascination for a certain brand of RPG sicko.

The demo centers on a particularly interesting area that was slated for Van Buren, "Burham Springs," a largely abandoned town located on top of a perpetually burning coal seam that resembles the real-life Centralia Mine Fire. The town's formative disaster was caused by NCR soldiers attempting to smoke out fleeing powder gangers after an assault on the Hoover Dam, and the resulting mutants were deemed "gehennas" and "molechs" by residents of New Canaan.