While Fallout 3 is beloved today, the game wasn’t always lined up to be a massive success. Based on an isometric CPRG—which they should absolutely make another one of—Bethesda was making its first true first-person shooter after a lifetime of making sword and sorcery Elder Scrolls games.

According to Fallout 3 lead artist Istvan Pely, this was a huge jump for the studio, and it led to many discussions about whether or not the team could actually make a satisfying first-person shooter while keeping the RPG elements that the studio was known for, but also made Fallout the series prior fans fell in love with.

Speaking to EDGE Magazine, thanks GR, Pely explained that the team wanted to keep the RPG elements that made players better at shooting if they continued to put points into the types of guns they were using. However, they worried that players would simply bounce off the game if shooting felt unsatisfying.

“We had to work out how your character’s abilities would factor into your ability to shoot,” the artist said. “Your skills aren’t good, so when you shoot at things, you’re missing – but does that feel good? Or is it just frustrating?”

This eventually led to the game’s interpretation of the original CRPG games’ VATS system, which allowed players to focus-target on specific areas of a character to shoot them. In Bethesda’s games, this feature is even more satisfying with it pausing the game for your character to attack in a slick slow-motion sequence… unless you’re playing the live-service multiplayer Fallout 76 game.

While VATS helped to mitigate some of the game’s gunplay issues, there was also a worry that this system wasn’t satisfying. Bethesda’s earlier Gamebryo engine struggled with camera positioning which led to the team designing an algorithm to “make sure it [the camera] didn’t get stuck behind an object”, although that definitely still happens occasionally in the final product.

“There was a long period where it was like ‘is this even fun? Is this worth doing at all? Is anyone even going to use this?’” Pely recalled, explaining that the team “only just” got VATS working properly just before it was time to ship the game.

When it launched, Fallout 3 was a massive hit, and gamers immediately flocked to the first-person RPG. While it did have extremely clunky gunplay and a litany of issues, it quickly became a gaming icon with a gigantic fanbase, many of whom never even played the original games.

Right now, Fallout is in a weird situation. While the series is more popular than ever due to the ongoing Amazon TV show, Fallout 5 is seemingly many years away. However, a full remaster of Fallout 3, in the same vein as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, is reportedly in development, and some rumours claim additional remasters are also in the works.