Wasteland 2 Interview

Eurogamer has posted another interview with Brian Fargo, focused exclusively on Wasteland 2, which is about to receive a long-awaited update that will revamp its inventory interface among many other things. Interestingly, he also comments on his relationship with Bethesda:

What is unlikely is that inXile will get involved in publisher-funded console development again, after what sounds like a disturbing experience making Hunted for Bethesda. This, I think, is a shame, because if the Fallout rights owner ever decided to greenlight a game in the series created in the old-school style, or perhaps gave the thumbs up to a remake of Fallout 1 or 2, I can’t think of a better developer than inXile for the job. Fargo, after all, founded Interplay and co-created the series.

“I don’t think we’ll be talking with Bethesda,” Fargo counters, his voice for the first time losing that enthusiastic kick I’ve been enjoying for the past half hour.

Why not?

“We had a tough relationship with them.

“It’s kind of funny to be competing with my own franchise.”

I press.

“They’re very successful and they do some very high quality products. They have a very different attitude towards development than what I’m used to. I’m sort of more… if you think of a film, every director has his or her own way of doing things, no matter what. There’s no cookie cutter for their approach. And that’s what makes films so great: you have these wildly different approaches. I had my own approach and they have a structured way of doing it that’s just different than mine.”

This past bad experience of course has to do with Hunted, a game that promised much but failed to deliver both critically and, crucially for Bethesda, commercially.

“That was the only time I did business with them, yeah,” Fargo says. Don’t hold your breath for a sequel.

And – perhaps unsurprisingly – don’t hold your breath for an inXile-developed Fallout, either.

“Yep. Very unlikely.”