What started as a small fan event at a La Quinta Inn event hall in Garland, Texas, has grown into one of the world’s largest gaming events, and this year’s 20th anniversary of QuakeCon was bigger than ever thanks to the excited buzz surrounding two upcoming games: Bethesda Softworks LLC’s Fallout 4 and Id Software’s Doom.

Id surprised fans by announcing at the start of the event that QuakeCon attendees would get to be the first people to try out the multiplayer for its upcoming reboot of the Doom franchise. Hundreds of gamers lined up for the chance to explode people with rockets and snap some necks, and most immediately lined back up to play again.

But as exciting as the new Doom was, the real star of QuakeCon 2015 was without a doubt Todd Howard, the head of Bethesda Game Studios and the man who revealed unseen Fallout 4 footage to a completely packed event hall full of over a thousand rabid fans wearing slightly creepy Vault Boy masks.

Did I say slightly creepy?

Howard had revealed Fallout 4 for the first time at this year’s E3, but the QuakeCon presentation showcased new gameplay footage taken from the in-game location of Lexington, Massachusetts, which has been overrun by ghouls, the Fallout series’ irradiated version of zombies. Fans cheered at nearly every shot fired, but the noise reached new levels when the player picked up a mini-nuke launcher and started firing small nuclear weapons at a giant mutant.

More details revealed during the presentation included brief introductions to four potential companions in the game: the returning fan favorites Dogmeat and Mr Handy, a dog and robot butler, respectively; Preston Garvey, the leader of a militia; and Piper, a woman met outside the gates to Diamond City, the makeshift village that formed in the ruins of Fenway Park. Howard also revealed that companions would be romanceable regardless of the player character’s gender, something Bethesda already did in Skyrim.

Fallout 4 will include features and gameplay mechanics that are new to the series like a fully customizable town, greatly expanded crafting options, and more, but it will also see the return of a few staples from the series such as the Bloody Mess perk, which gives attacks a chance to…well, the name is pretty much self-explanatory.

Images by Eric David | SiliconANGLE