While Bethesda is now synonymous with the Fallout series as well as The Elder Scrolls, the studio did not create the series. Bethesda originally secured a licensing deal to make the third mainline game in the series before fully acquiring the rights in 2007, but a large section of fans were unhappy at the news back in the day.
We’ve all heard horror stories of hate campaigns against developers. Hell, we recently just talked to System Shock Remake developer Nightdive Studios who revealed that fans called the IRS and FBI on them during the game’s creation, and some Bethesda developers believe the constant hate directed at them will never end.
In a recent discussion with EDGE Magazine, the game’s associate art producer, Angela Browder, recalled the mass hate Bethesda received for even attempting to make a new game in the series. (Anyone who is a long-time Fallout fan will remember those discussions on a certain forum.)
“There was a section of the Fallout fandom that felt a team famous for making elves and fantasy games should not be touching the series,” Browder recalled as Bethesda was largely only known for its work on The Elder Scrolls. “It was surprising to us how much hate we got. They were not very happy that we had bought this license.”
Emil Pagliarulo, now the lead on a majority of Bethesda projects, explained that the team wanted to stay true to the themes of classic Fallout during development of Bethesda’s debut. While the same developer has claimed the studio no longer has to be “so reverential” of the series over a decade later, Fallout 3 was designed to be a faithful adaptation of the original games.
“That was it, right there,” the developer recalled looking at a map of Washington DC’s Tidal Basin. “’It’s got to be about water. It’s got to go back to those original themes of Fallout 1 where it’s just about survival and just about something simple.”
While Fallout 3 became a massive success, it wasn’t a faultless release. Like many Bethesda games, there were a fair number of bugs, and systems like gunplay were ropey around the edges. Pagliarulo explains that it was tough as many “couldn’t really comprehend the complexity of the freedom we were trying to give the player, and how that can screw things up.”
“When you go to fix bugs, you have to be so careful,” he said. “You can change a line of text and it blows up art somewhere.”
Nevertheless, Fallout was a huge hit—it was everywhere, more so than The Elder Scrolls had ever been at that time. Browder explains that, while many didn’t want Bethesda to touch the series, it ended up revitalising the franchise to generations of new fans. After all, would a TV show like Amazon’s ongoing series release without the likes of Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4? Absolutely not.
“You look at the amount of fans that Fallout had for 1 and 2, which expanded with 3 and expanded with 4, and now you have a television show,” they continued. “That, to me, is the success of it – all these people who became lifers.”
Bethesda’s take on Fallout hasn’t been perfect, far from it, and I would love a return to the classic isometric style for a spin-off or two, but the studio has deservedly made the franchise their own. With the wait for Fallout 5 likely many years away, it’s still quite nice to see that Bethesda isn’t rushing to release quick, dirty projects to make a quick buck… outside of the awful anniversary release of Fallout 4.
Alongside years of additional Fallout 76 content in the pipeline, Bethesda is also reportedly working on a remaster of Fallout 3 with the same team behind The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Remasters of Fallout: New Vegas have also been reported, albeit with less concrete proof.
