We had Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, and more last year, but other than Fable 2 what are our RPG releases for the rest of this year? Well, Fallout 3 should end up being the Oblivion of 2008 (especially considering they're from the same developer). The continuation of the post-apocalyptic dark-humor-filled isometric PC RPG of yesteryear has been in development for a while now, and is still slated for a Fall release. Bethesda's VP of Marketing, Pete Hines, sat down for a ridiculously long interview with the guys from gameplayer.com.au, and the interview is well worth reading even for folks who don't consider themselves either Fallout or Oblivion fans. And if you're either (or both!) of those then this is absolutely required reading.
Keep reading the post though, and you'll hear about the vaults ....
In the interview, Pete goes into really depth with discussion of the universe and it's history. The game takes place 200 years after a devastating war, in post-nuclear Washington DC. Your character has been isolated in a bunker their entire life, then is released into the sprawling wasteland to find their father. That's the premise, but the world is so much deeper and Bethesda's dedication to the IP is really apparent over the length of the interview. The game itself has real-time or a form of turn-based combat, and features choices that actually effect the storyline (which has at least 9 different endings).
So, vaults, from the sound of it they function similarly to the dungeons in Oblivion, only these things have much more backstory to them. Vaults in the Fallout universe were bunkers people hid inside during the nuclear war, vaults were also places where the resident big-brother-type-company performed strange experiments on the people housed inside. Hence each vault will have more sense of place, belonging and story than any Oblivion dungeon. As an example, what follows is a snippet of some of the vaults mentioned in the interview (which are from the game's lore, whether they will be locatable in-game remains to be seen.)
Vault 101 Your character's. Meant to remain permanently shut.
Vault 68 Contained 999 men, and one distressed woman.
Vault 69 Contained 999 women, and one happy, sore man.
Vault 106 Psychoactive drugs were released into the air filtration system ten days after the door was sealed.
Vault 55 All entertainment tapes were removed.
Vault 56 Same as vault 55, except one tape was supplied of a very bad comic actor. Sociologists predicted that this vault would fail long before vault 55.
Vault 34 This vault had an overstocked and unlocked armoury.
Anyway, there's way to much to relate here, so go read the interview and get back with your take on things.
