After 17 years, Bethesda finally seems to be making good on Fallout 3's disappointing collector's edition with a "fully functional" $300 Pip-Boy replica

Fallout – with its infinite deserts, homicidal bandits, and irradiated drinking water – is pretty low on the list of video game worlds I fantasize about living in. But its retro-chic technology does have a magnetic appeal, and Bethesda has spent years trying to offer the magic of a fully functional Pip-Boy to collectors. Now it seems the thing you'd actually want is here, albeit with a very steep price tag.

"The first ever fully functional, supremely accurate, wearable 1:1 replica of the Pip-Boy 3000 as used in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas" is now available for pre-order from the Bethesda Gear store for the not so low price of $299.99. It does, admittedly, look just about cool enough to match the superlatives on the store page, which describe it as "not only fully functional, but wearable, and exhibition-grade displayable."

Bethesda has been trying to make good on this promise for years, going back to a disappointing collector's edition for its first take on the franchise way back in 2008. The Fallout 3 Survival Edition included a Pip-Boy that functioned more as a digital desktop clock than a wearable prop, and while it looked decent it apparently chewed through batteries like nobody's business.

The market for Fallout collectables might've hit a low point with that "f***ing insulting" Fallout 76 collector's edition, but the Pip-Boy dream lived – first with a modular construction kit from The Wand Company letting you build your own Fallout 76 Pip-Boy, then with a similar $200 replica based on the Pip-Boy from the TV show.

This new replica is quite similar in functionality and quality to the TV show version, but styled in the manner of the games that brought so many fans to the Fallout series all those years ago. It's a bit of a full circle moment. Assuming you have $300 to burn, that is.

I'm certain you will agree completely with our ranking of the best Fallout games, a topic which never causes debate or animosity.