Fallout 3 - Impromptu Forum Q&A

Following on from a discussion on the official forums about the latest Fallout 3 interview at Next Gen (reported recently), lead designer Emil Pagliarulo responded to a bunch of pointed questions with frank answers.  NMA has collected them all together in one spot - here's a sample:

You love the games, but don't want another...
You love the original games, but hated the foundation that made them great. Therefore, ypu intend to "oblivionize it" as much as possible in order to please the Halo fans.

All I can do is give you an honest answer, Caligula. I can't make you like it.

As for shades of gray, and the Brotherhood of Steel depicted in my team diary -- Very fair point, and yeah, I think those shades of gray are incredibly important. There are quite a few quests in Fallout where the truth isn't quite what it seems, and it's up to the player to determine what is right and what is wrong; and that's certainly a there that pervades the entire game.

That's not to say there can't be characters who strive for something more noble. Elder Lyons wanted to help the people of the Capital Wasteland. Was he right? He certainly thought so. Did those around him agree? Not all of 'em. [...]

system shock became a legend though. that won't happen with bioshock, i think.

See, I don't know if I entirely agree with that statement. System Shock 2 is a legend amongst certain old school PC gamers, sure, but there are plenty of people who've never even played it. There are plenty of gamers -- sure call it a new generation, whatever -- that played played Bioshock and will be saying the same thing about that game 10 years from now. And I'm biased -- I love Shock 2. I was at Looking Glass during the its development.

Then why not just come up with "THEIR OWN" post-apoc FPS ( w/pause ) game ?

That's a really fair question, and one that's obviously come up a lot. The answer for us is pretty simple -- no other post-apocalyptic world would have been nearly as awesome as Fallout. No Vault Boy, no S.P.E.C.I.A.L., no futuristic 1950s vibe. We specifically wanted to make Fallout 3 for all those reasons and more; if the license weren't important to us, we could have made a post-apocalyptic game a long time ago.