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E3 '07 Preview: 50 minutes with Fallout 3
by Ron Burke
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Imagine a world frozen in time. The simple world of Leave it to Beaver come to life – a world without complication. War complicates everything, and war never changes. In a flash, this simple world was bathed in nuclear fire that obliterated almost everything on this planet in the blink of an eye. Some escaped using expansive underground shelters called Vaults, but most perished in the blink of an eye. You were born in Vault 101. Secure in the knowledge that the world outside had burned out of existence, you are content in the Vault mantra that you were born here, and you will die here. Welcome to the world of Fallout.
During E3 I had the distinct pleasure of sitting in for a pretty lengthy demo of Fallout 3 with Executive Producer Todd Howard of Bethesda at the helm. Not one for drawn out speeches, Todd picked up an Xbox 360 controller and launched the game.
Kicking off the demo, we saw the teaser trailer nicknamed “World on Fire” that was released just a short while ago. The gruff trademark voice of Ron Pearlman filled the room as the intro ended, but this time we got the full rundown:
“War. War never changes. Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything from God, to justice, to simple psychotic rage. In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation. But it was not, as some predicted the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world, but war - war never changes. In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters known as vaults. But when they emerged they had only the hell of the wastes to greet them. All except those in vault 101. For on that fateful day, when fire rained from the sky, the giant steel door of Vault 101 slid closed and never re-opened. It was here you were born. It is here you will die. Because in Vault 101, no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves.”
As the trailer played we saw flashes of the Fallout world. Bombed out playgrounds and buildings littered the landscape. Washed out Vault billboard advertisements that few took seriously perch precariously on rotted and charred wooden legs. As nuclear fire obliterated the world, we saw Vault 101’s great steel gear-door seal shut with the intention that it would never re-open.
The Vault:
Moving into the real-time demo, Todd tells us that the game actually starts with your birth. You decide what your character looks like, with your childhood told as flashes of your early life. This will determine how you look when you are older, and ultimately also determine what your father looks like. It was at this point that Todd confirmed that the game can be played in both first and third person perspective. The reason? Bethesda wants to truly bring the game to life in a way that works best in first person perspective. A chair that you otherwise might have overlooked in Fallout is there, brought to life by the game engine. Grating that might have flashed the text “Rattle rattle” on the screen in the original title instead whirrs with a mechanical hum. The detail was absolutely incredible and clearly shows the amount of work that is being put into recreating the post-apocalyptic world we’ve all come to love.
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