Bethseda licenses Fallout rights, announces Fallout 3

By Games Industry.biz Published 13 July, 2004

New franchise sequel in the works, but Interplay retains online rights.

Interplay's Fallout franchise has finally found a new home, with Bethseda Softworks today announcing that it is to develop and publish Fallout 3, having licensed the exclusive rights to the property, excluding online gaming rights.

The Fallout franchise is one of the best-regarded PC RPG series, with the first title (launched in 1997) and its sequel both being considered to be among the best RPGs on the platform, although the series took a tumble somewhat with Interplay's recent console action title, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.

Bethseda is best known for its work on The Elder Scrolls series of games, the most recent of which, Morrowind, won a large number of awards and became one of the best-selling games on the platform when it was released on the Xbox.

Fallout 3 will be developed by the company along with the next chapter in The Elder Scrolls, and it would seem that it will not be using any of the assets or code from the part-completed Fallout 3 title which was being developed by Black Isle Studios before Interplay shut the project down.

"We are overjoyed," said Bethseda's Todd Howard, who will serve as executive producer on the new title. "Fallout is one of my favourite games, and we plan to develop a visually stunning and original game for Fallout 3 with all the hallmarks of a great RPG: player choice, engaging story, and non-linearity."

Although Bethseda now owns all the rights to the franchise across all platforms, Interplay has retained the ownership of the intellectual property, along with the rights to create online games based on the franchise. This ties in with the company's announcement last month that it plans to turn its fortunes around by developing a massively multiplayer title based on the Fallout franchise.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 8 years ago

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  • Hunam85 #1 8 years ago

    Im excited by this as morrowind does show a similar non-linerity (sp?) that fallout does, and bethesda arent money grabbing fucks (well, not as bad as iplay), but i wonder if they can keep the fallout feel

  • Groovicron #2 8 years ago

    Yay! (although I hope they remain close to the original play style rather then a Morrowind style like the guy's last comment in the interview over on gamespy seems to suggest to me.)

  • Hunam85 #3 8 years ago

    yeah, the interview on gamespy is great, every question was literally answered with 'dunno'

  • KraftWerk #4 8 years ago

    Oh. Oooh. This is just about a bit too good to be true. Considering the fact that I hold Fallout 2 and Morrowind as being the two best computer RPG's out there. Fallout has a definite own style, so I don't think it will be hard to keep the feeling of the game.

  • jimmyjimbob #5 8 years ago

    YAY!

  • ekko #6 8 years ago

    I hope they don't screw it up.

    They've got too keep that rye humour, the unconventional of it all and they've got to nail that Fallout atmosphere perfectly.

    Fallout 3 could be step foward in the Fallout world as GTA3 was to the GTA games.

    Good luck Bethesda...

  • KraftWerk #7 8 years ago

    Well, anything will be a step up from BoS I guess, but I can't see any reason why this game won't turn out to be great fun. Hopefully, it will still be isometric (with 3D graphics, surely) and still be turn-based.
    Edited by 1 at 13/07/04 @ 19:38

  • KraftWerk #8 8 years ago

    That's too bad for them. Of course the game will be in 3D. Could still be isometric. I just hope it will be turn-based, because otherwise, with the guns and all, it will turn in to something more like an action game. I have full confidence in them making a great Fallout 3, though.

  • Dis #9 8 years ago

    Must agree that this is exciting news. Not sure we can really expect much more in interviews than a string of 'dunnos' though. Can't imagine any thought has gone into how to tackle this game as yet. Hopefully it will be a little less distracting than Morrowind but retaining a reasonable level of non-linearity. Quite frankly, I played Morrowind for about 50 hours in one game and never got past about the 3rd mission in the main story arc. Just so damn much to do.

    Also agreed that gore, violence, prostitution and drug taking must form a core part of the gameplay experience to truly capture that Fallout feel.

    Any bets on the release date for this ;)

  • UncleLou #10 8 years ago

    If you read the mini-interviews at a few gamesites, it's pretty clear it won't be isometric, and probably not turn-based. It sounds (from the little we have) like a Fallout mod running on their next Morrowind engine. Not really good news, imo.

  • UncleLou #11 8 years ago

    They also said "we're going to do what we're good at", and "we're going to use the technology we already develop for another project" and "it won't be isometric". So it's almost impossible not to jump to the conclusion that it'll be Morrowind with guns.

  • Hunam85 #12 8 years ago

    could be top down with rotating camera, that isnt isometric as isometric is locked views

  • UncleLou #13 8 years ago

    Afraid not. They said it won't be isometric or any other form of top-down. There's a mini-interview at IGN that makes it pretty clear it will be a first or third person game.

  • UncleLou #14 8 years ago

    Here's the actual quote:

    Again, it's early to say, but it wouldn't be a leap of faith to say that we plan to use technologies in development otherwise. You could make some fairly safe leaps of faith that it would be similar in style. We're not going to go away from what it is that we do best. We're not going to suddenly do a top-down isometric Baldur's Gate-style game, because that's not what we do well

    And of course it's all speculation, and I'll be more than happy to be proved wrong, I am just not too optimitic about it (and still crying inside whenever I remember that FO 3 got canned ;-)

  • KraftWerk #15 8 years ago

    It will be very interesting to see how it turns out anyway. Nothing I've read have made me anything near discouraged, and unless it's going console I don't think we have to fear another Deus Ex 2 situation. It's bound to be a challenge to capture the feel from Fallout 1 and 2, especially with new writers. The presentation is crucial.

  • KraftWerk #16 8 years ago

    I can't believe that people are whining already.

  • Grim Fandango #17 8 years ago

    There's something to be said for Bethseda diving into the Fallout radioactive pool, and I'm pretty sure they'll do more than a good job (we'll see in about 2 years) but I (sadly) have to agree with rumpleforeskin: Morrowind was lifeless and the character models were horrid.
    If they keep the same open-ended gameplay though and the same user-friendly modding tools, they might have another game of the year on their hands.