Those two words on a sticky note apparently determined the fate of Bethesda’s Fallout games, as stated by Todd Howard.
Several Fallout 3 devs recently sat together for a video called “Fallout Retrospective – A New Generation” (opens in new tab), where they reflected on their time making the game and explained how the Starfield studio came to take over the Fallout franchise. Bethesda director Todd Howard says in the video that a sticky note was the catalyst for finding Fallout’s new developer.
Howard said, “After stating that Bethesda has its eyes set on acquiring the Fallout property, I can tell you that they are working on it.” “We could always hear a voice from that first planet.
As a result, “can you imagine if we got to do Fallout?” was at the top of our list of things we hoped to do in the near future. Considering that nobody has done it for a long time, is it even possible?”
When asked how he and the team got the go-ahead to develop a Fallout game, Howard continued: “In particular, I recall returning to my desk to find a yellow sticky note with the words “Fallout’s yours” written on it, courtesy of Bethesda’s Vice President of Development, Todd Vaughn. That’s all that was stated. That is something that will always stick out in my mind.”
Clearly, this was the best possible piece of news that could have come to Howard’s ears, since he continues: “Due to the fact that this was rumored to be a possibility amongst the crew, I may have yelled and run around the studio saying something to the effect of “hey, we’re doing this.” Honestly, it was amazing. Our levels of excitement were over the roof.”
With Fallout 3, Bethesda became the exclusive publisher of the Fallout games. The games were originally invented by Tim Cain, who also appears in the film, and produced by Interplay Entertainment. As Cain puts it, “it felt like my kid had been adopted by another family” when he handed Fallout over to Bethesda.
The father continues, “It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like the family; it’s just that my baby was going to be raised differently from how I would raise this baby.”