Before there was Fallout 3 in 2008, there was Van Buren – the sadly canceled, Black Isle Studios-led third Fallout – and even though it never came to fruition in the end, it could've been one heck of an RPG.
Or, at least, it sounds like it might've been. Obsidian Entertainment's Joshua Eric "Josh" Sawyer, now best known for his work on genre gems like Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, seems to think it was shaping up to be quite a game.
He explains as much in a new interview with The Examined Game on YouTube (below), first noting that he "wasn't the lead" on Van Buren, that role belonged to Chris Avellone. He was the lead system designer, however.
Things were complicated over time after the team was stripped and left with a "skeleton crew," though, as Sawyer puts it. Resources "got taken away to work on another project outside of Black Isle." Considering the work that had been done on Van Buren, it was disappointing.
"This is such a bummer because we made a cool demo," as Sawyer recalls. "It looks very dated now, but… it was like 2003 when this demo was finished."
He notes that you can find said demo online, and after a quick search myself, I'll admit it does look pretty dated… but also pretty dang solid. It certainly fits the vibe of the first Fallout games a bit more than Bethesda Game Studios' own Fallout 3 does.
As Sawyer says himself, "I thought it was a really cool demo, and it showed that we were doing some pretty neat things." But, of course, nothing ever came from it, unfortunately.
According to Sawyer, however, publisher Interplay eventually did see it. "They said, 'Well, if we had known that you had made this, maybe we wouldn't have canceled it.'"
It's a frustrating consideration for the Obsidian dev and his former coworkers, as they "repeatedly" asked for acknowledgement of Van Buren. "We invited you over and over and over again, and you never came," he recalls. Sadly, as Sawyer concludes, "they weren't interested in it."
This all lines up with what others have said in the past. Fallout co-creator Tim Cain stated that the original canceled Fallout 3 could've shipped and been "a really good game," for example.
It's upsetting to know Van Buren won't ever see the light of day properly, I suppose – but for the time being, we do have fan-led projects like the Nexus Mods version of Van Buren that are playable for free.
