New Fallout game announced

[Werthead]

Lots of Fallout news broke yesterday.

 

First off, there was this preview of Broken Steel, which picks up after the end of the first game and expands the level cap to Level 30. It looks like a very solid expansion and I'm looking forward to it. It is released on 5 May.

 

Secondly, in an impressive display of circular reasoning, Bethesda and Obsidian Entertainment (Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights II) have joined forces to produce Fallout: New Vegas. This will be a stand-alone RPG 'spin-off' from Fallout 3, likely using the same engine but with a new story. Think of the relationship between GTA3 and Vice City. Obsidian are, of course, the successor company to Black Isle, who wrote and created the original Fallout and Fallout 2, with some designers from those games still working for them. Obsidian are also notably better than Bethesda at doing character and writing, and given those elements, whilst acceptable, were not outstanding in FO3, it'll be great to see improvements in those areas. Fallout: New Vegas will be released in 2010, whilst Bethesda's core team are already working on a new project (rumoured to be The Elder Scrolls V, with possibly a fully-fledged FO3 expansion pack to be released first).

 

In less happy news, Bethesda are involved in a legal tussel with Interplay over Fallout Online. According to their contract, Interplay were supposed to raise $30 million in funding for the project by 4 April 2009, which apparently they failed to do. Interplay, who have already started work on the projected with the original core designer of the first Fallout game working on it, are disputing this claim. This one could turn nasty, since an MMORPG based on the 5 million+ selling Fallout 3 could potentially do huge business for whichever company ends up controlling it.

[Dunbar]

I just hope New Vegas won't be a poor attempt to wring more cash out of fallout 3 fans

 

It better be good! *shakes fist; angrily*

[Werthead]

The Fallout 3 engine attached to the writers of Planescape: Torment? Yeah, it should only be three or four times better than the original game ;)