Interview by: William Abner and James Fudge
The next full game title in the Fallout series, Fallout: New Vegas, hits stores next week. To get a behind the scene look at the game and some of its features, we talked to Larry Liberty, Senior Producer Obsidian Entertainment, and fired off some questions to him about the upcoming game.
For the uninitiated, what’s New Vegas all about?
Fallout: New Vegas is the latest game in the Fallout series, which began life in 1997, and is the follow up to Fallout 3. The world of Fallout marries the unabashed optimism of idealized 1950s Americanna with a post-apocalyptic future - the result of a nuclear conflict between the United States and China. People survived the war by living in great underground bunkers known as Vaults.
For the first three games, the protagonist was a Vault-dweller, someone that left the relative safety of their vault to brave the dangers of the desolate wastes of the outside world. In New Vegas, the main character was not raised in a vault. In New Vegas, players assume the role of a courier who delivers valuables across the dangerous wastes of the Mojave. At the outset of the game, the player will find themselves in a tough spot - bound, shot in the head, and left for dead. If not for the timely arrival of a friendly robot, this would have been your end. As it is, it's just the beginning of your story.
Give us some background on New Vegas - why is it so clean? Is there an actual government in place pulling the strings here?
New Vegas wasn’t hit directly when the bombs were dropped so the area is relatively clean. Having been rebuilt within the past few years, the area is thriving more so than the rest of the surrounding wasteland. The architect of this revival is the enigmatic Mr. House. Operating out of his casino, the iconic Lucky 38, his robotic servants do his bidding and keep order within the walls of The Strip.
The art direction in Fallout 3, which focused on environments that feature a sort of beautiful desolation, was one of the game’s real strengths. How has the change in setting, to a place not directly affected by nuclear armageddon, changed how you present the world to the player?
There is still a good deal of the beautiful destruction that was ever-present in Fallout 3, but it is less prevalent. Even so, the differences between the two games are apparent. The most notable: much of the Mojave Wasteland features a clear, blue sky; there is power, and quite a lot of neon lighting; at night, you'll see light pollution from almost anywhere in the Mojave Wasteland emanating from The Strip; generally speaking our color palette is warmer, and that extends to the default amber UI color.
Although Fallout: New Vegas is obviously its own project, with its own team, what would you say to gamers concerned about the release condition of New Vegas, given Obsidian’s history with releasing games that were not necessarily as complete or polished as they should have been?
In the case of New Vegas, we were given enough time and given established tech to alleviate those concerns. We were able to draw on the expertise of a handful of the Fallout 3 team, making getting in and creating content that much easier. There was never any doubt about the direction or vision for this game. This made it possible for us to focus on simply making great content - something that normally takes a great deal of pre-production time
