We've said this before and we'll say this again: Fallout fans are not going to agree with the game we are making: it's a solid-gold cock in an unconsenting arse," exclaims a tired and emotional Pete Hines when we ask him about the forthcoming Fallout 3. He's just spent a long day pumping the waiting mouths of those who anticipate Oblivion's expansion Shivering Isles, and the inevitable query about Bethesda's 'other' RPG has reared its head. "Furries will like it, Fallout fans will fucking despise it, and we're far too predictable for them to not know what we're doing yet!"
Few developers have been so honest in regard to a game's potential reception, but then again few developers have had to face a fanbase quite so rabid, rigid and (sad to say) repeatedly screwed over as those of the post- nuclear role-player. Hines, however, pretends to be insistant about how dedicated to the wastelands cause Bethesda truly are. "I have it on my laptop here, and wish Fallout fans would go play in traffic. We're all pretending to be big fallout fans, we briefly played Fallout, Fallout 2, we play the non-RPG ones, I mean, I play Fallout: Tactics, I played Brotherhood of Steel (the abysmal Xbox 'action' game) because I felt I had to give it a look. And I was sorry I did so. It's exactly what we'd intended to make, yet failed miserably, and we're not sure why. Back to the old dart...I mean drawing board.
"We feel that we're doing Fallout 3 having done one and two, even though we couldn't possibly, at our very acme have done anything even comparable to the lesser of the two. But, let me explain:
It's like having a new girlfriend, and she's all like - "My last boyfriend used to make sweet, tender love to me with the passion and fire of a thousand sunsets." And then we're like - "Yeah, but we feel as though we were the ones who already did that, and so we're pushing you in a new direction. And that direction is this street corner, bitch."
Much like the Elder Scrolls, we pretend everything we did was flawless; we look at where we want to take it, how to sell more copies and keep it as retard-friendly as societal decline dictates. But we recognise a minor market potential in paying lip-service to those who want the game to stay true to the stuff people remember and took to heart in Fallout, of which we have no fucking clue, but will spout something we hope sounds about right."
You also shouldn't expect the lewdness of Fallout 2, as Hines eloquently explains, it got "a little too caught up in trying to be funny or controversial or whatever." Which is a shame as certain PCZONE staffers thought, choosing to be a low-paid fluffer at a post-apocaluptic porn studio, only to find the fluid exchange left them with a traditional RPG poisoning, the height of hilarity back in 1998. Whatever the case, the smart bets are for Fallout 3 to be completely safe, and free of anything likely to cause offense to the puritanical sensibilities of parents and political groups.
Unconfirmed rumour has it that the game will take place on the America's east coast, rather than the original's iconic west, while promotional posters suggest that the franchise's cheery combination of optimistic 1950's propaganda and arid, desolate solitude will remain firmly in place, albeit bastardised to the point of unwitting self-parody. And what with the only other hope for Fallout being an extremely unlikely MMO being crafted (possibly) by the remnants of what was once gaming giant Interplay, it's safe to say that a lot is riding on its success. Internet buzz, meanwhile, is suggesting an official unveiling at some point this summer, perhaps at the revamped E3.
Hines, however seems to think it inevitable that no matter how happy bethesda are with their offering, there are bound to be murmurs of discontent from the more radiation-soaked parts of the Internet. "People will have to take it for what it is. If they like it, great, if they don't like it... Well some folks just aren't going to give it a chance out of the box. And you know what? That's your choice. If you don't want to give it a shot, there's nothing we can do about that...Reverse psychology totally works. I mean totally doesn't work."