Former Bethesda artist and Fallout 76 lead Nate Purkeypile is just as glad as you are that Bethesda has a Fallout 3 remaster on the way. Purkeypile worked on the original RPG back in 2008, so he's acutely aware that it could have been better.
Purkeypile tells The Examined Game host Steven Lake in a new YouTube interview, "I'm personally looking forward to [the Fallout 3 remaster], because we were, like, super tech-constrained making Fallout 3." The dev says, "you could only place so many lights," plus textures were small, and devs were "constantly worrying about the memory budgets, or how much stuff you're putting on-screen... So it's not like it's exactly how we intended."
Recalling video game development in 2008, nearly 20 years ago, is like revisiting an archeological site. Culturally, no one could decide if video games were really art, but teams crunched hard trying to at least make something good. Fallout co-creator Tim Cain recalls in a 2023 YouTube video on the subject, "Many, many people worked many, many hours more than eight in the '80s and '90s, and even into the early 2000s. Part of it was passion, part of it was necessity. There was just no way to get games finished without crunch."
Then, in terms of technology, 2000s gaming was stone and bronze compared to the iron tools we have today. Unreal Engine only went up to 3. No one sat around evangelizing about 4k resolution, because there was none to be had. Developers had to be flexible with their limited options, but some didn't like to be, so Purkeypile says, "I get why people are more upset over movie remakes and stuff. But, in the case of games – and particularly the art side of it – it's 100% not what we intended, and it was very, very constrained."
"Even before I was doing games professionally," the developer remembers, "I started making games before we had color. So, I was seeing [development] change dramatically over time."
The past 20 years of technological evolution we benefit from now is helpful not only to new games, but also to remakes. Purkeypile emphasizes, "I think a lot of these remakes have been done, frankly, better lately, too."
He continues, "Like the Resident Evil ones and stuff, those were fantastic. Whereas, for a while, I think a lot of those updates were like, 'Oh, we made the textures a little bit bigger, and, like, threw a sharpen filter in Photoshop,' and it doesn't really look that much better, or actually as good as other games coming out."
Ideally, the Fallout 3 remaster ends up a perfect balance between the old and new world: more faithful to its original developers' ideas in 2008 while also being a genuinely competitive modern title.
Fallout 3 is a masterpiece and I hope the remaster comes to Switch 2.
