At the time, long-time fans affectionately dubbed the game “Fallout: PoS“. To add insult to injury, these losses were followed by the release of Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel – a dire, Interplay-developed shooter that dragged the license into a dark alley where nasty things were done to it. Then the franchise entered its darkest period: Interplay descended into financial turmoil, the third true game – known at the time as “Van Buren” – was cancelled, and the entire Black Isle team was laid off. Next came Fallout: Tactics, a curious but not entirely unsuccessful attempt to at squad-based strategy.
The series itself, meanwhile, has been in an ongoing state of flux: Fallout 2 initially appeared to be an expanded facsimile of its predecessor, and yet buried beneath its surface lay a number of important tonal differences – notably an increased fondness for juvenile humour and tongue-in-cheek nods to pop culture. For years now the Fallout games have been telling us that war never changes.