Fallout: The original vision

With Fallout's rabid fanbase, it isn't a surprise that chief among the requests voiced to Bethesda about the upcoming Fallout 3 was: "do not screw it up." And it'll sound familiar to anyone who chanced upon the official forum site.

But fans shouldn't fret.From day one, asexecutive producer Todd Howard reveals, Bethesda has been working from the original Fallout design - using the Fallout Vision Statement, created when the first game was just a twinkle in an old man%26rsquo;s eye.

The document covered 14 points, Howard explains onthe official Fallout 3 website. And each point laid down an aim for the development team, a landmark for what Fallout was trying to be and achieve. For instance:

• Mega levels of violence. When people die, they don't just die- they get cut in half, they melt into a pile of goo, explode like a potato in the microwave, or several different ways- depending on the weapon you use.
• There is often no right solution. Like it or not, the player will not be able to make everyone live happily ever after.
• There will always be multiple solutions. No one style of play will be perfect.

And, finally:

• The Team is Motivated. We want to do this. We care about this game and we will make it cool.

"Ten years later and I don't know that I would change a word of what we want to do today," Todd Howard enthuses, "especially that last one." Fallout 3 may be a reinvention, but it's still going to be a Fallout game through and through.

August 6, 2007