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Tag: Fallout

  • Microsoft Buying ZeniMax Media/Bethesda Softworks For $7.5 Billion

    Microsoft Buying ZeniMax Media/Bethesda Softworks For $7.5 Billion

    Microsoft has announced it is acquiring ZeniMax Media, the parent company of gaming studio Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion in cash.

    Bethesda Softworks is the studio behind The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Rogue Warrior, Ghostwire: Tokyo and others. Bethesda has established itself as one of the most successful, privately held game studios in the world.

    Microsoft’s acquisition will help the company capitalize on the growing gaming market, and fits in well with its current software strategy. While the Microsoft of the past fiercely protected its own platforms, under CEO Satya Nadella the company has emphasized providing the best software experience on all available platforms. This has resulted in more of its software being available on macOS, iOS, Android and Linux, in addition to Windows.

    The same is true for gaming. Microsoft is focusing on providing the best gaming experiencing wherever, and on whatever device, a person may be playing. Owning a studio with Bethesda’s track record is a big step toward that goal.

    “Gaming is the most expansive category in the entertainment industry, as people everywhere turn to gaming to connect, socialize and play with their friends,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Quality differentiated content is the engine behind the growth and value of Xbox Game Pass—from Minecraft to Flight Simulator. As a proven game developer and publisher, Bethesda has seen success across every category of games, and together, we will further our ambition to empower the more than three billion gamers worldwide.”

  • Redditor Handcrafts Fallout Monopoly for Incredibly Lucky Wife

    Redditor Handcrafts Fallout Monopoly for Incredibly Lucky Wife

    So, reddit user XsimonbelmontX has made me extremely jealous, as he has created a undeniably awesome Monopoly-like board game based on Fallout. Did I mention it was awesome?

    “I spent about 8 months making this. It is a birthday gift for my wife, who is a huge Fallout fan. It is based on Monopoly, but aside from purchasing properties, collecting rent, and a few other things, the mechanics of the game are completely different,” says user XsimonbelmontX.

    Nuka Cola and Sunset Sarsaparilla caps serve as the currency, with Nuka Cola Quartz worth $1 – all the way up to Sunset Sarsaparilla Star caps being worth $500.

    And here are the seven game tokens:

    The “Chance” and “Community Chest” cards:

    The wife chimed in on the reddit thread, adding this little tidbit:

    “He was working on this for 8 months and I had no idea what it was. He would take people into our music studio to show them and I would piece together the things that I knew and still had no clue!”

    When another user asked if they could marry him if they ever divorced, she responded “I wasn’t planning on it even before this, he’s a keeper!”

    Yeah, dude scored some major points.

    You can check out the whole Imgur album of photos here.

  • Fallout TV Show Teased By Bethesda Trademark Filing [UPDATED]

    Remember last week when Fallout 3’s Erik Todd Dellums (the voice of Three Dog) made a series of cryptic tweets regarding a possible return to the Capital Wasteland?

    “To all my #Fallout3 and #ThreeDog fans: There may be more of the Dog coming! Fingers crossed!” he tweeted. “How was that for a tease! I was given permission to release that tease, so fingers crossed.”

    Everyone assumed that is was simply teasing Fallout 4, and the fact that he would be back for it. Information on a brand new Fallout game? Hell yeah! Right?

    Well it appears that there may be another wrinkle to what Bethesda is planning. Eurogamer spotted a recent registration with the U.D. Patent and Trademark Office by, you guessed it, Bethesda.

    Here’s how the trademark application reads:

    Entertainment services in the nature of an on-going television program set in a post-nuclear apocalyptic world

    I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds a lot like a Fallout TV series. Adding to the evidence that something like that could be in the works, Erik Todd Dellums has been tweeting about the TV series rumor:

     

    I am seriously curious about this one.

    UPDATE: Agent c of the Fallout Wiki is reporting on the user blog that this filing is possibly just an extension of a previous trademark application, which would suggest Bethesda simply holding on to it for safekeeping. It seems that Bethesda did file for a trademark for Fallout on February 5th, 2009 as an “entertainment services in the nature of an on-going television program.”

    Meanwhile, Erik Todd Dellums has nothing to report:

  • Galaxy News Radio Host Three Dog Teases Fallout 4

    Galaxy News Radio Host Three Dog Teases Fallout 4

    If you spent any amount of time in the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3, you’re no doubt familiar with Three Dog. The Galaxy News Radio host was sometimes your only friend as you traversed the wastes hoping that you don’t stumble upon a Deathclaw. Now it looks our favorite DJ may be back for more if a recent tease is to be believed.

    Erik Todd Dellums, the voice for Three Dog, recently teased on Twitter that he he would be back for a new Fallout project. The obvious conclusion is Fallout 4 which would be welcome by just about everybody. Fallout 4 wouldn’t be entirely surprising either as IGN reported last year on a rumor that stated Bethesda was scouting out Boston as a potential location for the fourth entry in the longstanding post-apocalyptic RPG series.

    While hopes are high for Fallout 4, some fans have taken the tease to mean that a Fallout movie is on the way. Either way, it looks like we’re going to have more Fallout in the near future. Now the only question is whether or not a potential Fallout 4 will be on current generation consoles, or on the next generation of consoles from Sony and Microsoft that are expected to launch this year.

    [h/t: IGN]

  • Fallout-Themed Proposal Leaves Vault Girl Speechless

    It’s always great to see nerds in love. It’s not surprising that those passionate about the geeky things they love would be similarly passionate about the people they love. When it comes to marriage proposals, leave it up to the nerds to combine all of their passions.

    YouTube user satisyingsigh (Trevor in real life) decided that PAX Prime in Seattle this past weekend was the perfect time to pop the question. Since the couple were doing a little Fallout cosplay at the event, he decided to make his proposal Fallout themed. From Trevor’s video description:

    We had been saving up bottle caps since November 2011 with the intention of using them at PAX Prime 2012 to attempt and purchase something from the Bethesda booth (the creators of Fallout 3). It was originally going to be a sort of “gag” to try and score some interesting swag from Bethesda, and in Alisha’s mind, it stayed that way.

    So we get to to the booth, hand a lady our caps, and she pulls out a locked ammo case. The walkway was getting crowded, so we walked over to a nearby table to try and pick the lock. Alisha had a key in her pocket that I had slipped in there earlier, but my plan to get her to discover it failed, so i pretended to have picked the lock (because I had a spare key). Alisha pulls a wadded up piece of brown paper out of the shells and gunpowder that were in the ammo box. She unravels it to find a ring box. Yay! Until i stupidly drop it and execute a quick recovery.

    That, my friends, is a man who has taken the Lady Killer perk.

    (via Bethesda Blog)

  • Black Isle Studios Resurrected by Interplay

    The website of the defunct video game developer Black Isle Studios was re-activated today, and it appears as if Interplay has resurrected the studio to create RPGs. As seen in the screenshot of the website above, a message on the website reads:

    “Our goal has always been to make the world’s best RPGs.

    Black Isle Studios is back.”

    Black Isle Studios was formed by Interplay in the late 90s and came to prominence in the PC gaming market for developing the first two Fallout games and for publishing the Baldur’s Gate series.

    The Black Isle website also contains links to newly-made Twitter and Facebook accounts. The Twitter account contains no tweets as of yet, though it contains the description:

    Black Isle Studios is a division of Interplay Entertainment devoted to creating the world’s best role-playing games

    The Facebook account, which was created on August 13, contains timeline milestones marking some the company’s games including Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, and Fallout 2. It also has an ever-so-slightly different take on the cryptic descriptions from the other sites:

    Black Isle Studios is a division of Interplay formed to develop and publish high quality role-playing games.

    Neither Interplay or the new Black Isle have released official statements regarding the matter, or whether the Baldur’s Gate series will be coming back. While the studio may be back up and running, there is also no word of any former Black Isle employees being hired on at Interplay. Without the people who developed all of those classic games, gamers have to wonder whether the name Black Isle alone means anything. There is always hope, though.

  • Bethesda Teases Something For “Tomorrow” On Facebook

    UPDATE: It’s the debut trailer for Dishonored. Check it out here.

    ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Just what in the hell is Bethesda going to hit us with tomorrow?

    Whatever it is, it has me and a whole bunch of other people pretty intrigued, and quite excited. Earlier this afternoon, Bethesda posted a single screencap on their Facebook page with a single word: “Tomorrow.” You can see that image above.

    Okay, so is it Fallout: New Vegas DLC? A new Fallout game? Skyrim DLC? Dishonored?

    Let’s just check out some of the debate going on over at Facebook:

    They havent even started working on fallout 4 so we know thats not it and @george new vegas is done getting add ons this i hope is a skyrim expansion

    Note to all people thinking this is Fallout: NV, nobody is working on that game no more. Plus the graphics don’t mach at all… So more like Skyrim or Rage DLC or Fallout 4. BUT NOT New Vegas.

    I just want to say I’d be surprised if it’s a trailer for an entirely new game. They would probably announce Fallout 4 at something like E3. That being said, I’m hopeful it’s Skyrim DLC

    I just want to say I’d be surprised if it’s a trailer for an entirely new game. They would probably announce Fallout 4 at something like E3. That being said, I’m hopeful it’s Skyrim DLC

    Lost: The Video Game (that’s definitely Sawyer) 😛

    Eddard Stark! They’re making a game of thrones game:P

    Ok, those last two were obviously jokes. But what do you think? Skyrim DLC? Something from their upcoming release Dishonored?

    To be honest, we’re not sure around here exactly what this is. It doesn’t look really look like Skyrim to us, and Fallout also seems unlikely. Prey 2? We’re obviously just spitballing here. Dishonored is probably coming later this year and its steampunk style looks absolutely amazing. Although that’s probably your best bet, this doesn’t really look like Dishonored to us either, but you can check it out for yourself:

    Hopefully “Tomorrow” really means some big news tomorrow. Maybe Tomorrow?

  • Wasteland 2 Hopes To Get Funded Through Kickstarter

    Ever since Tim Schafer and his team at Double Fine shattered Kickstarter records by raising over $3 million dollars for their new game, other developers like the Tecmo MMO team have met with success after taking their project to Kickstarter.

    inXile, the developer behind the last year’s Hunted: The Demon Forge, has begun a Kickstarter campaign to fund a sequel to Wasteland. A lot of newer gamers may be wondering what Wasteland is. If there was no Wasteland, there would not have been Fallout. If there was no Fallout, there would not have been 2008 game of the year Fallout 3. Wasteland was the original post-apocalyptic RPG and inXile feels that it’s time for a new one.

    This is where you, the fans, come in. They can’t do this alone because this style of hardcore PC RPG is frowned upon by publishers. It’s too much of a risk for publishers who only want to fund sure fire hits.

    They team needs $900,000 to make the game a success. In reality, they need $1 million, but Brian Fargo, head of the Wasteland 2 team, has already pledged $100,000 if they reach their goal.

    What will gamers get if the project exceeds its funding goals? The team says that at $1.25 million, they will make the game bigger, add more maps, more stories and more music. If the funding reaches $1.5 million, they will port the game to Mac OS X for even more gamers to enjoy.

    The development of Wasteland 2 already has the big names attached to it. Brian Fargo, executive producer of both Wasteland and Fallout, is back on tap to head the team making the game. The game’s original designers, Alan Pavlish and Mike Stackpole, are also back on the team to make this the best love letter to classic PC RPG fans there is.

    The current development team isn’t the only group working on the game. The fans who fund the project will be deeply involved with the development process. The Kickstarter page lays it out:

    We’re planning on an initial 6 months of pre-production. We’ll nail down every important element that you, our creative partners, want. Once we have all that figured out, we buckle down for 12 month development cycle. During that time, players can get a sneak peek on a private closed beta through Steam. In addition, we will be giving you constant updates and showing you our progress along the way.

    At the moment, the game has raised a little over $108,000 in pledges with 1,828 backers. It still has 34 days to raise the $900,000 needed to fund the game. If it performs anything like the Double Fine Kickstarter, it should reach that goal in a few days time.

    The more important thing about this project is its potential success. As the Kickstarter page states, this is their chance to prove the big publishers wrong about old school RPGs. Kickstarter provides an avenue for indie developers to be heard and get the funding they need without the help of a major publisher.

    If you would like to be a part of this potentially historic game in the making, check out the Kickstarter page and see what the team is up to. This is the chance of a lifetime to see the return of a genre that’s been dormant for years.

    As an added bonus, check out the tongue planted firmly in cheek video announcing Wasteland 2 that pokes fun at modern game creation: