Fallout 3 revived!

[Grumbold]

The interplay forums are DOA at the moment which is an ominous sign.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Atari!

Don't joke like that.

It could be true. Apparently, Interplay has finally filed all the paperwork with the SEC (belatedly), and here's a quote from their 10-K:

On or about February 23, 2004, we received correspondence from Atari Interactive alleging that Interplay had failed to pay royalties due under the D&D license as of February 15, 2004. If we are unable to cure this alleged breach of the license agreement, we may lose our remaining rights under the license, including the rights to continued distribution of BALDUR'S GATE: DARK ALLIANCE II. The loss of the remaining rights to distribute games created under the D&D license could have a significant negative impact on our future operating results.

EDIT: Source

[Grumbold]

Ouch. That certainly reads pretty disastrously to my untrained eye.

[mactbone]

Man the one site that would have all the info. is down. Apparently Duck and Cover doesn't own their domain right now.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

When D&C was up, there were rumors that German (or is it Polish or Russian) developer Silver Studio (or something like that), who are into post-apoc games, was interesting in making Fallout 3.

I also know that it was originaly cancelled although a great amount of work had been put into it.

[vovan]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
When D&C was up, there were rumors that German (or is it Polish or Russian) developer Silver Studio (or something like that), who are into post-apoc games, was interesting in making Fallout 3.

It's German, yes. It would suck, IMHO, if they got the license, though. They are currently working on an unlicensed clone of Fallout - The Fall. While it looks alright, it doesn't quite impress me. I think that a company should prove itself first by producing a good game or two, and only then be given a license to continue such an incredibly successful franchise as Fallout. Otherwise, they are almost guaranteed to botch it. And it is not even so much that their game would necessarily be bad, it's just that the people's expectations of such games are so much higher (Civ3?).

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
I also know that it was originaly cancelled although a great amount of work had been put into it.

Yep. When they closed BiS, the fallout 3 project died with it essentially.

On a related note, it seems that Atari went ahead with pressing charges against Interplay on the grounds that they didn't pay for the D&D license on time, and the latter have lost the rights to distributing their D&D games - Baldur's Gate, etc. Hence, they will soon disappear from the shelves until the conflict is resolved. (They have already disappeared from the Interplay site.) What that means is that Fallout is pretty much the only big game Interplay has got left. I wonder if they'll sell the license to get the last bit of cash, or try to hold on to it, and finish developing F3. The latter would be hard, it seems, seeing how the employees didn't even get paid for the last few weeks of work.

[Grumbold]

If they wanted to make money publishing it they would not have canned it, just rushed it to an early release. Things have to be pretty badly f'ed up when you can't even cover your building rent for the company HQ.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Interplay's been f'ed up for quite a while, and certain publishing decisions haven't helped.