Fallout 2

Fallout 2 turned 20 years old yesterday.

Last month, Bertie and I visited Obsidian Entertainment to take a wander around the place and talk about some of the remarkable games they've helped create.

When you weren't trying to save your village in Fallout 2, you might have dabbled in a little extracurricular activity. That's cool, I'm not here to judge. Crack on.

When Skyrim launched just shy of four years ago, it attracted a lot of people who had never touched an Elder Scrolls game before. I was one of them, in fact. Given the amount of muscle Bethesda has thrown into the marketing, it's highly likely Fallout 4 will do the same.

With Fallout 4 due out in a couple of weeks, millions of people are set to leap into the post-apocalyptic open world Bethesda has spent the last few years crafting.

The Fallout Anthology has just been announced, grouping five beloved post-apocalyptic RPGs together for the first time.

After years of waiting and false hopes, Bethesda has finally announced Fallout 4. It's as good an excuse as any to take a trip through time to where it all began, in a very different kind, but now much more familiar kind of Wasteland. This was back in 1988, on technology so primitive that most of the original's game text had to be printed in a manual, with the game simply giving a number to look up every time anything happened. Nevertheless, it found almost instant critical and commercial success... and immense difficulty getting a sequel off the ground. At least, an official one.

With Wasteland 2 out now and Torment: Tides of Numenera in full production, developer inXile Entertainmen appears to be looking to the future.

They were removed from GOG at the end of 2013, but now Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics are reinstated... on Steam.

It's been more than a year since Skyrim developer Bethesda Game Studios moved wholesale onto its "next major project", which we expect to be Fallout 4. The game was in pre-production while Skyrim DLC rolled out, and in April 2013 was declared ready for the team's "full attention".

Fallout fell out of retro-game-download-shop Good Old Games' hands at the end of the year because it was no longer old licensor Interplay's to give away. Bethesda's the boss now.

How's this for a freebie? GOG's Winter Sale is dishing out Fallout 1, 2 & Tactics for free from now until Saturday (14th) at 2pm UK time.

Guido Henkel, the man whose masked face dominates the Planescape: Torment box art, is working on a new role-playing game called Deathfire.

Fallout publisher Bethesda Softworks has registered a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for "an on-going television program set in a post-nuclear apocalyptic world."

The newly resurrected Black Isle Studios intends to make triple-A role-playing games based on Interplay's intellectual property, it's said.

Update: Former Black Isle lead designer Chris Avellone has given Eurogamer his take on the news.

Kickstarter darling Wasteland 2 has attracted more mouth-watering talent - game designer, writer and author Colin McComb, who played a pivotal role making revered RPG Planescape: Torment. He also worked on Fallout 2.

Fallout developers Tim Cain and Chris Avellone will help write the Nuka Break web show if its kickstarter raises $120,000.

Interplay's Fallout MMO may never see the light of day as Bethesda attempts to terminate the licensing agreement with a lawsuit filed last week.

GOG.com (good old games) turns one tomorrow and will celebrate by offering a free Interplay game for every Interplay game purchased. In other words: buy one, get one free.

Interplay classics Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Kingpin and Sacrifice have been added to Steam.

When Fallout 3 was announced, the widespread joy at the resurrection of a beloved and largely forgotten series by a developer of as much established talent as Bethesda was huge. But it was matched by an equally fierce backlash from one of the most notoriously fanatical, difficult-to-please fanbases in the gaming world. Most Fallout fans were adamant that the series ought to be left alone, that the limited technology that the games were built upon was an integral part of what Fallout was, and that any attempt to modernise the series could only result in the bastardisation of one of the most fondly-remembered game universes in the history of the medium.