Bethesda suing Interplay over Fallout MMO

by David Hinkle on Sep 11th 2009 8:30PM

Things weren't looking good for Interplay earlier this year and, uh, much hasn't changed since then. Even though the company had virtually no money, it still wanted to make the Fallout MMO, Project V-13. Well, Interplay's got another hurdle now: Bethesda. The Oblivion and Fallout 3 developer claims that Interplay infringed on its trademark, court documents show. Interplay disagrees, obviously, and says it still holds the rights to develop the title with Masthead Studios, even though it failed to commence the stipulated full-scale development by April 4, 2009.

Gamasutra has more info on the lawsuit, which also mentions Interplay's licensing of the original Fallout games for digital distribution through services such Steam, GOG.com and GameTap. Bethesda says this has caused "immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm." But, hey, it's not all frowns and sad faces. Above this text is a neat piece of concept art for Project V-13 from Natiq Aghayev. Man, we never thought post-apocalyptia could look so good.

Source - Court documents [Via VG247]
Source - Gamasutra

[image credit]

Tags: bethesda, Bethesda-Game-Studios, Bethesda-Softworks, bethesda-v-interplay, fallout, fallout-3, fallout-mmo, interplay, lawsuit, mmo, project-v13, RPG

Reader Comments (53)

Wow. I usually back Bethesda when they get criticised, but this is indeed at total dick move.

Don't know or care about the MMO, but releasing the first 3 games on GOG, Steam etc.... is an awesome thing. If bethesda starts causing trouble for GOG then they'll have to deal with me.

Also, how can the release of Fallout ONE and TWO cause confusing for fallout THREE????!?!?!?!? WTF. Even the biggest idiots on the internet can count as far as 3.

Bethesda sucks - they make sub-par games...OBlivion a complete bore fest and Fallout 3 was totally over rated, both games 5/10.

Interplay was the best - FALLOUT 1 and 2 are the best RPGs of all time.