After many years of problems and arguments of a legal nature, last week brought news that the battle over the rights to make a Fallout MMO had finally been decided, but it was still in question which side won. Would Interplay retain the MMO rights to the series it had first or had Bethesda now received full use of the property it purchased? If you bet on the side with more money, looks then you guessed correct.
The matter dates back to 2007, Bethesda purchased the Fallout franchise from the struggling Interplay but gave Interplay the rights to make a Fallout MMO, so long as Interplay met certain demands. In Bethesda’s opinion Interplay couldn’t meet those demands, and while it wasn’t proven either way if Interplay actually had the financing to develop the MMO, this settlement makes the point moot anyway.
So what does this mean for the future? Well it means Interplay lost however much they invested in Fallout Online over the past five or so years, and that the company will probably mainly subsist on selling Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics on sites like Steam and GOG. But what happens to whatever it is Interplay created for Fallout Online while battling Bethesda in the courts?
Above: Check out the official website while it still exists
Perhaps Bethesda could purchase that from Interplay and use it in some future game, but we highly doubt that Zenimax has any real plans to make a Fallout MMO in the immediate future. The point of this lawsuit wasn’t so Bethesda could make an MMO, it was to make sure no one else could. And it looks like that until an eventual nuclear apocalypse, Bethesda owns Fallout lock, stock, and barrel.
