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Todd Howard said recently, in an interview with The Guardian, that Bethesda is unlikely to use outside studios when it comes to developing future Fallouts. Bethesda keeping it within its nuclear family comes as bad news for a number of developers – studios with plans of their own, design docs dwelling in the bottom drawers of desks, waiting for the phone to ring…
Just imagine what some studios could do if given the reins, and what some would’ve done if been allowed to see visions realised… just imagine… just imagine… just imagine… (When you read this, gradually fade out for maximum effect before going onto the next bit which you can read out loud.)
FromSoftware
FromSoftware was reportedly planning its own Fallout, with the studio's priest and polestar, Hidetaka Miyazaki, excited to capture the sorrow of once majestic cities and animals beginning their inexorable descent into decay. The game (early working title of Fallout: Souls Die Twice) would still feature V.A.T.S., only time would keep its regular tempo. Though this sounds rather punishing, the advice from the game's fans would likely be to simply become better at aiming in real time. The project sounds as if it would stay very light on story, with most coming by way of inventory descriptions of Nuka Cola bottles and Astoundingly Awesome Tales magazines.
Dontnod Entertainment
As if by way of balm for the blistering heat of From's effort, word is that Dontnod had something quite different in the works. Fallout: War is Strange would have proved that you can set a coming-of-age tale in the pleistocene as long you tell the right story, and in the right way. Word is that Dontnod had mapped out just such a story: two teens, growing up in the Capital Wasteland, dream of escaping to New California. Conversations would bloom and branch, difficult choices would be made, and the innocence of its heroes would likely have proven as fugacious as fumes. Life, life never changes.
Quantic Dream
And, for better or worse, neither does David Cage. What scant information emerged from his Parisian studio sounded rather like a quantic pipe dream; even without Howard's remarks, it would be a tough sell. Beyond Heavy Fallout: Become a Nomad Synth would have told the tale of Jean-Paul, a Generation 3 synthetic living in the commonwealth, having immigrated from The Island. He sees the cruelty with which his kind is treated, and the rights they are routinely denied. Cage's Fallout would feature no violence of any kind – it's no way to change hearts and minds, afterall – and would scrap RPG elements in favour of QTEs, while each and every cap must be picked up manually using the analogue stick, so you can 'feel the weight' of capitalism.
This would be in no way (and actually how dare you) a commentary on current issues; it would stem from the steaming seriousness of Cage's concern for the plight of robots – something of a defining theme of the man's latter career. Cage would likely respond to criticisms by saying, 'You wouldn't ask Scorsese why he pursued his Mafia fascination with Casino, after doing Goodfellas, so why ask me?' Sadly, Bethesda now won’t.
GenDESIGN (Team Ico)
Fortunately for GenDESIGN (formerly Team Ico), the sparse themes their games have hewn are uniquely suited for the toxic wasteland. Not much is known of the team's proposed Fallout game, but its usual totems are a natural fit: an ancient civilisation razed to rubble, lone wanderers picking through the remnants, all set to the snarl of ghouls and dusted over by the passage of time.
Die hard Fallout fans would surely dread the filleting of studio head Fumito Ueda's design-by-subtraction mantra; others would relish a fat-free RPG. The bloat and baggage of the inventory system would have certainly been cut, forests of dialogue trees felled in favour of wordless understanding. All in service of a simple, beautiful tale of a young boy partnered, under extreme circumstances, with a kind-hearted mirelurk.
Grasshopper Manufacture
But who wants kind-hearted when you can have the tartrazine dream of Suda Goichi’s take on the series, Fallout is Dead: No More Fallout. Despite the extreme antipathy of its title, rumour has it Grasshopper Manufacture’s project would have paid tribute to Bethesda's behemoth with a series of referential riffs, like a convulsive punk cover band. The usual irradiated rags to riches tale was reportedly infected with Suda's strain of swagger: leather-clad radstags, strutting super-mutants, and a hero by the name of Punchinello Swift. By far the most outlandish aspect of the project was that Grasshopper planned to scrap combat entirely in favour of a rhythm-action guitar minigame called G.A.T.S.
Ubisoft
It's always been curious that an arid wasteland, filled with quibbling factions and unmapped terrain, wouldn't have its share of lookout towers and guard outposts. It wouldn't have been the case for much longer if Ubisoft was allowed to pursue its proposed trilogy. Fallout: Hesitation, Fallout: Convolution, and Fallout: Jubilation, would undoubtedly have been the sort of troika most developers don't have the manpower to muster.
Ubisoft's latitudinarian approach would reportedly have bequeathed Fallout a number of gifts: the aforementioned outposts and lookout towers; Ubisoft Reflections' driving expertise for the addition of vehicles; Ubisoft Singapore's sailing was supposedly making its way over; and Ubisoft Montreal was planning a game based almost entirely on hacking, leaning on its experience making Watch Dogs. It sounds like a massive undertaking, with each game exploring the wasteland by land, sea, air, and… through computers.
Sadly, we won’t get to see any of these nascent dreams come to fruition, but, as Howard himself was quick to add, 'I could never say never. I thought the Obsidian guys did a fabulous job.' Well, there you go: even if Bethesda is unwilling to gamble, we can always take a trip to New Vegas.
