Like Oblivion the game has a moral choices though out the game, based on customer feedback/your own stats do most people tend to play it good, evil, or somewhere down the middle? Does that impact your design decisions at all?
I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, I love designing “evil” gameplay. I love letting the player get into that really dark place, and experience something really sinister. I always have a sense of humor about it, but it’s something I can’t resist. That sort of started with some of the work I did in Thief 2, and definitely carried over into the Dark Brotherhood questline in Oblivion, and boy of boy is there some of that stuff in Fallout. I mean, even beyond the gameplay videos that have been released. You have no idea! But part of this – and this is the interesting thing – I have real difficulty playing an “evil” character in a game. So I love designing that stuff, but when it comes time to playing it, I just can’t do it. I think I have a serious Catholic guilt complex, to be honest.
Fortunately, most people don’t seem to share my aversion, and love to play the evil characters, so at least I know it’s not wasted work! Bottom line, it’s just really fun to let loose and be evil and do whatever the hell you want – which is to say, everything you can’t do in the real world.
Fallout 3 is a large open world game that allows for a lot of freedom, can you talk about how that impacts the design of the game and do you feel that you have to put things in place to keep the players on track with the plot of the game or do they do that themselves?
These large open world games have become Bethesda’s trademark, and with each new title we become better and better at it, I think. A big part of that is knowing how to keep the player on track, and putting the gameplay in his or her face. So while it’s a giant open world, we always make sure the player has an objective that points them toward the next part of the main quest. You can go off and wander all you like, but at any time, you can look at where you’re supposed to go and pick up where you left off.
The other part of this is making sure there’s plenty of additional gameplay on that main quest path. So say the player is sticking to the main quest – we make sure they stumble over some miscellaneous quests along the way. We’re always directing the player, really, it’s just that most of the time it’s so subtle you never even realize it.
One of the big new features in the game is the V.A.T.S. system in the game, what was the inspiration behind the feature? How do you incorporate a feature like this without interrupting the flow of the game? How has the V.A.T.S. system evolved over time?
Fundamentally, the inspiration for V.A.T.S. came from the Aimed Shots in Fallout 1 and 2. If you look at V.A.T.S., you can sort of see the natural evolution there. But for us, it wasn’t just a matter of wanting to copy what the previous games did. We knew we were going to have lots of first- and third-person combat, and wanted it to be just as much about character skill as it would be player skill. That’s really what V.A.T.S. accomplishes – it’s all character skill, and doesn’t require crazy twitch skills.
It really took putting the system in and playing with it to see where it fit most naturally into the course of the game. For a while we wrestled with the complexity of it. You know, what should V.A.T.S. be? Should it be a much more robust, tactical component? Should we allow the player to do more in V.A.T.S.? But we realized how much that would slow down the pace of the game. I think one of the beauties of the system is that it is so fast. You go in, you queue up your moves, you leave, and you see them played out cinematically. So the gameplay flow isn’t interrupted. It’s the opposite, really – V.A.T.S. feels like a natural element WITHIN the flow of combat. So we’re really happy with the end result.
Is there anything important about the game that we didn't talk about? Safe to assume we won't see a demo for the game?
Nope, no demo. We prefer to put our resources into making the actual game, and besides, with a world this big, you just can’t get an accurate assessment after playing a small demo and there’s no way to just rip a part of the game out and have it work. It’s one big, giant, interconnected “thing.”
One thing I think your readers should know is that, whether you played the old Fallouts or not, Fallout 3 is its own beast. We created what we feel is a really fun game, and we want you to experience it any way you want – good, evil, or somewhere in between. We’re really proud of what we accomplished, and hope you can find a home in the Capital Wasteland!
Fallout 3 hits stores next week. We'd like to thank Emil for taking the time to answer our questions and to Kate for helping to coordinate the interview
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