It’s no secret that Fallout 3 launched to unanimous praise almost a decade ago, but things could have panned out very differently indeed for Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG.
As Obsidian Entertainment CEO Fergus Urquhart revealed to IGN, two separate versions of Fallout 3 were canned early on in development, both of which were headed up by Black Isle Studios. The first, codenamed Van Buren, has gained notoriety since 2008, cropping up in YouTube videos and the like, while Black Isle’s second attempt at the RPG involved a shift over to 3D. For the sake of perspective, the Fallout franchise began life as an isometric RPG series before 2008.
Per IGN:
“Now 3D was the cool stuff. So we were going to move from being a 2D engine and be a 3D engine, and so we actually started working with this 3D technology called NDL.”
Right around the same time, publisher Interplay experienced financial woes, at which point the project was subsequently overhauled into Icewind Dale, a dungeon-crawler that Urquhart believes to be a “couterpoint” to Balder’s Gate.
What do our readers make of these canned versions of Fallout 3? Drop your thoughts in the usual spot below.
[Source: IGN]
