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Interview
by
Keza MacDonald
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Fallout 3 is a game that many, many people have been praying for since the nineties. In Leipzig last week, we were given another chance to see the very first demo of Bethesda's interpretation of this beloved universe (for details, see John Walker's preview), and it was no less impressive the second time around - gorgeous, violent and extremely faithful to the series' legacy, it was a personal game of the show by a long, long way. At the end, people clapped, and we're talking Europeans here, not our considerably more effervescent American counterparts. Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP of Public Relations, was kind enough to sit down for a chat afterwards about the difficulties of working with such a revered franchise, and Bethesda's approach to the challenge.
Eurogamer: First things first: why did you wait so long before deciding to finally unveil Fallout 3?
Pete Hines: Well, first of all you've got to understand that back in 2004, we sort of had to let everyone know that we had acquired the rights [to the Fallout license], and that's very different than saying we're actually making the game. When we announced Oblivion, we'd had it in development for a long time and nobody knew about it, so we could say "here's Oblivion, here's what it looks like". Here, we sort of said "We've got this license and we're going to start working on it," but we didn't have anything to say or show. We really like to wait until we get to a point where we feel like we can give folks a good sense of what we're doing, and not just talk about it, because you can talk about anything; if we'd just said "Yeah, we're going to do this VATS [Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System] thing," then people would have been like "Well how does that work?" It's tough to explain - it's much easier to go "Look, THAT's how it works".
It's really important for us to be able to do proof of concept stuff - here's how it's going to play, here's what it's going to look like, here's all that stuff - as opposed to just talking about it. And things change for us. Things will change all the way through development, but they really change during the early part, where you're still ripping things out and sticking stuff in - we wanted to get through that stagee before we showed it.
Eurogamer: Do you think developers are a bit too keen to show their games before they're ready?
Pete Hines: Certainly. We feel like slightly over a year [before release] is about right for us. Certainly with Fallout, we felt like it was time, and we had the game at a point where we could show folks and they'd get it - everyone kept asking us about it, so we thought "Why don't we go ahead and let everybody see what it's like, and then they'll know?". Three years out [from release] would have been a bit far, but now all everyone has to do is get through this holiday, and then we can start warming up - it'll be practically here!
Eurogamer: Why exactly did you decide to take up the challenge of a Fallout game in the first place? Was there a really a burning desire to work with the franchise?
Pete Hines: That's honestly how it happened. It was just us sitting around talking about doing something else besides the Elder Scrolls, something RPG-ish, and wondering, what could we do? We had discussions and agreed collectively - seeing as nobody's doing anything with it, if we could get Fallout, we would love to do a Fallout game, because it's both very different from Elder Scrolls and something that a bunch of us really loved as a game and thought we could do well as a franchise. We were sitting there thinking we wanted to play another Fallout game, and if nobody else was going to make one then we might as well do it ourselves. So we did; we went up to our president and our senior management and said, look, can you guys make this happen? And they knew some folks at Interplay and had conversations and worked out how to get it. We're very excited and honoured to be carrying on this franchise.
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speedofthepuma
30/08/07 @ 07:23
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Morrowind was genius, Oblivion flawed genius.
I hope this is the former. |
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I appreciate the way that they aren't splurging out crud just to take headlines like /some/ devs out there.
Games would likely come out a few months earlier if their devs weren't so worried about making sure they had an interview or new bit of 'news' every other day. Hype is all well and good, but it can be overdone. |
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TardKommando
30/08/07 @ 08:17
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Wee typo perhaps: that stagee before
Everything from Bethesda so far indicates that they 'get' Fallout and I am extremely optimistic that this will be a stellar game. (Ignore those mouth breathers at NMA, they are the laughing stock of the internet.) Also are post-apocolyptic games becoming trendy? FO3, id's rage and Borderland - will make a nice change from high fantasy and space aliens. |
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Psychotext
30/08/07 @ 08:33
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@Roamer: You obviously haven't seen enough of the game. You can pull the view back out to third person if you want.
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TonyCocaCola
30/08/07 @ 08:44
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Im looking forward to it, a couple of years ago i didnt like the idea of it being first person but after seeing the screenshots i think its gonna look great.
hope they keep the descriptions for things, like the broken toilet on the floor. "A broken toilet... lifes a crapper then you die" or something like that. |
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mcwildcard
30/08/07 @ 09:21
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I loved Daggerfall, but just couldn't get into Morrowind or Oblivion.
I thought they both lacked the charm and vision of Daggerfall. Fallout is another series I loved, as much as I hope I'm wrong, I think Fallout 3 will fall on it's face and ditch some of it's unique essence to pander to a wider audience. Not that it'll be Bethesta's fault, when you fork out so much cash to make a game, you have to maximise your return to cover your own back. Need to see how the whole FPS combat thing works before having an true idea about how it'll pan out. I'd better be able to shoot someones nuts off. |
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PearOfAnguish
30/08/07 @ 09:22
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"Great interview! One question comes to mind though:
WHY THE FUNK IS IT IN FIRST-PERSON!? " Another question comes to mind: why are people so concerned about the viewpoint? Fallout wasn't a good game because it was isometric instead of first-person. |
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mcwildcard
30/08/07 @ 09:30
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The viewpoint doesn't fuss me in regards to the RPG side of things, but it does make a big difference in gameplay with the combat.
I hate turn-based combat in games, but it was done so well in Fallout that I'll miss it when it's gone. |
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TonyCocaCola
30/08/07 @ 09:39
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I think Jagged Alliance 2 has the best turn based combat system i have ever played. So much room for strategy, fallout 1 & 2 was more a case of "do i have enough action points to run upto that guy and use the smg. Not that im dissing fallout.
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"I would be so worried about this if it weren't for the answer to the last question:
"and as long as we don't fuck it up and we make a good game," That does wonders to sooth my soul! " Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP of Public Relations. What he means is 'as long as those monkeys back at the office don't fuck it up and make it good then i'm going to get a big fat bonus!' |
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kangarootoo
30/08/07 @ 10:47
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@mcwildcard
"I think Fallout 3 will fall on it's face and ditch some of it's unique essence to pander to a wider audience" I'm not sure there is anything wrong with appealing to a wider audience. If that is what Fallout 3 ends up doing, I wouldn't see that as "falling on its face". I would just see it as taking a new direction. Pete Hines is obviously very aware of how trying to serve a certain niche of original fans could easily shoot creativity in the foot, and I for one think he is right. Some people will simply never be happy, so trying to meet their needs is futile and your time is much better spent impressing a "wider audience" who at least view your game with fresh eyes. |
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kangarootoo
30/08/07 @ 10:50
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@wired_protocol
"does anyone think the little animation things in BIOSHOCK describing what your implants/tonics do are a lot like the fallout style stuff?" Totally. I quite liked them for that reason though. I think the humour granted by that style also helped suspend disbelief on what was actually being presented to you (a vending machine in the mall that gives anyonewith "a few quid" the power of pyrokinesis could simply not exist in a free society without anarchy breaking out). |
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"Pete Hines is obviously very aware of how trying to serve a certain niche of original fans could easily shoot creativity in the foot, and I for one think he is right. Some people will simply never be happy, so trying to meet their needs is futile and your time is much better spent impressing a "wider audience" who at least view your game with fresh eyes."
Never has a truer word been spoken. |
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Some people really can never be happy. I know (well, knew, I no longer chat with these jerks) alot of folks that continually repeat the same sentence over and over and over again: "Since Baldur's Gate 2/Fallout/Planescape: Torment/Insert your favorite nostalgic crap that is no longer feasible in today's standards here, the RPG genre died". These elitistic jerks can't recognize a good game even if it hits them in the face, let alone enjoying one.
I basically summed up the long, heated discussion that went on for years by: "Well, the bottom line is that you simply prevent yourself from enyjoing other games for the sake of elitism and psuedo non-conformism. Your fucking problem". That being said, I can't wait to get my hands on Fallout 3. |
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Emilia'sHorse
30/08/07 @ 12:07
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I am one of the 500+ 360 Oblivion owners and I love it. I have full faith that Bethesda have more than enough talent and passion to make the Fallout I want.
Oblivion has become something of a target for jaded gamers to vent their bile. I am sure Bioshock will become the next target according to the last 150 posts in the review thread. It is all very sad. |
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TheUnionFrag
30/08/07 @ 12:20
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I would prefer it to be in the hands of BioWare personally. Now there's a stellar company.
As it stands - it looks pretty good, but not something I'm going to pick up straight away. |
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PearOfAnguish
30/08/07 @ 12:34
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And it is possible play new games without ruining the enjoyment of older titles.
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"Genji, alright, those games were excellent and amazing for their time, I agree, but people really do need to move on already."
I would argue that they are amazing and excellent even now. Yes, your point is taken about people living in the past and always complaining about new games, but some of those complaints are valid. I have never cared as much about the story and characters in an RPG as I did about those in Planescape: Torment. I felt immersed in a world, and the world was actually interesting, to boot. |
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I think it'll turn out great. I'm also pretty sure there will be things I'll miss from the original Fallout games, but unlike some *coughnomutantsallowedcough* people I don't fear change. You can't put this much money and energy into a game and just cater it to a few thousand people, not if you're planning on making any more games after atleast.
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Mr Harvest
30/08/07 @ 14:39
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It seems that at least Mr Hines gets what Fallout is supposed to be about. It's brutal, it's funny and it has that knowing glint in the corner of its eye.
I don't know how the 'smaller than Oblivion' bit is going to work though. The thing with Fallout was that the geographical distance meant that each of the cities / villages were pretty much isolated. It's a lot of dangerous terrain between here and there and only the meanest, toughest badasses are stupid enough to try to make the trip. It was the reason why there wasn't a proper civilisation. If the world is the size of a shoebox where will they fit in all the wasteland? |
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crazyhorse174
30/08/07 @ 14:50
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Was never the greatest fan of Fallout, but I'll reserve judegement on this until its out.
Which sort of brings me onto my point - why do people feel the need to constantly bash something before its even been released? How do you know a game is going to be crap, before you've even had a go at it. I know its going off-topic here, but the Halo 3 article earlier today had the same old people in panning the game before its even out as well. Yes, if you end up buying it and hating it, come on here and berate it all you like. Until then, shut up. |
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Just so you know, you CAN play it in third-person, much like you can play Oblivion in third-person - but it ruins the immersion and believability of Fallout 3's brutally desolate world. Watching the play-through, it occured to me that this was what Fallout actually always looked like in my head; I couldn't personally imagine any better interpretation of the environment.
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I liked the ambition of Oblivion and there some occasional good moments, but I got bored often with it and gave up in the end. Too bland, too many bugs, just not involving enough at all.
I worry about Fallout 3, although if they are genuinely taking a different approach than they did with Elder Scrolls then I'm happy. I suspect in the end this will just be sci-fi Oblivion though. Bethesda fans will like it and buy it in large numbers, the rest of us will meh and move on. |
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"Some people really can never be happy. I know (well, knew, I no longer chat with these jerks) alot of folks that continually repeat the same sentence over and over and over again: "Since Baldur's Gate 2/Fallout/Planescape: Torment/Insert your favorite nostalgic crap that is no longer feasible in today's standards here, the RPG genre died". These elitistic jerks can't recognize a good game even if it hits them in the face, let alone enjoying one. "
To say it's dead is a bit dramatic yes, but it's not as good as it should be now, especially not for people who actually enjoyed BG2/Fallout1+2/PS:T/Arcanum and that's a bigger audience than you can imagine. Because what are today's standards in the RPG genre? Better graphics, all game dialogue is spoken and things like that for sure but more intelligent, better and more dialogue, more choices, large parties, longer game length while the game keeps being enjoyable all the time, stories that are actually epic, immersive manuals? No way. The truth is that there hasn't been a better partybased RPG since the BG2/PS:T era and that there hasn't been an RPG with as much meaningful choices and playstyles as Fallout1/2/Arcanum. KotOR1+2, NWN1+2, TToEE, Bloodlines? Showing promise here and there and yeah, you can point out certain things that they did better than titles of the past but in terms of the "full RPG package" they fall flat on their face when you compare them to that "nostalgic crap". So many basic things got lost with that whole 3D transition in the RPG-genre, a real shame... Creating a bigger audience for RPG's has led to more action RPG's à la Diablo and freeform stuff à la TES. Good for people who enjoy that stuff, and hell, everyone can enjoy that but don't blame folks for wanting something else. There is a big difference between making things accessible and scaling/dumbing them down. Dismissing any good point about the past is the same as being an elitist as well. That being said, Fallout 3 looks good, seems to have several stuff right but some things look out-of-place. They got more than a year still so anything can happen. |
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I enjoyed KotOR and even the sequel, but it was not in the same class as the older rpgs. That's not nostalgia, it's simply an observation of how rpgs are at the moment. Too much emphasis on graphical prowess and it seems the ideas for original fantasy stories has run more than a little dry.
The post-ap setting for Fallout really does have potential to be great, just hope Bethesda can put in the humour and character that was not present in Oblivion anywhere near enough. |
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YourMessageHere
31/08/07 @ 11:58
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Well, if I can play this first-person I'll be even happier than if Fallout 3 was isometric and turn based. Anyone else remember the HL mod The Wastes with fondness? If this is a full SP game that's anything like that, I'll be very happy indeed.
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