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Fallout 3 was initially under development by Black Isle Studios, a studio owned by Interplay Entertainment, under the working title Van Buren. Van Buren was set to carry on the Fallout series, following Fallout 2, prior to being cancelled. Interplay Entertainment went bankrupt and closed down Black Isle Studios before the game could be completed, and the license to develop Fallout 3 was sold for a $1,175,000 minimum guaranteed advance against royalties to Bethesda Softworks, a studio primarily known as the developer of the The Elder Scrolls series. Bethesda’s Fallout 3 however, was developed from scratch, using neither Van Buren code, nor any other materials created by Black Isle Studios. Fallout 3 was to be centered around Utah and Colorado, but it also would have included areas of neighboring states. The player would be able to visit places such as Hoover Dam, Denver, Mesa Verde, and the Grand Canyon. [Info from Wikipedia]
In May 2007, a playable technology demo of the cancelled project was released to the public. You can read more about and download the beta at No Mutant Allowed website.
In the videos below you can even see Chris Avellone talking about the project at the Framework 2009 convention.
Thanks to Robert Seddon for the contribution!
Images:
Videos:
Did you like this Unseen Game? Here are some related posts:
U64 is an archive with articles, screens and videos for cancelled, beta & unseen videogames. Every change & cut creates a different gaming experience: we would like to save some documents about this evolution for curiosity, historic and artistic preservation.
5 Responses to Fallout 3: Van Buren [PC - Cancelled]
Robert Seddon
October 7th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
And speaking of No Mutants Allowed content, I think I may have forgotten to mention this before: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1097
monokoma
October 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am
“The purpose of this mod is to add back into the game all the content that was originally planned by the Fallout 2 devs. You will find about 6 new locations (some quite large, other smaller) as well as a few new areas to old locations. [...]”
really an interesting mod :) thanks for the link Robert
Chris
July 19th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I can’t believe they even contemplated releasing Van Buren for this generation. With a top down view like this it’s not much to ask for decent graphics. Turn Based combat was only used due to a lack of processing power – this is a major step backwards and it’s hardly suprising that Black Isle racked up huge debts with such a shoddy output.
Robert Seddon
October 8th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Via RPGWatch, Chris Avellone walking about the project after it was cancelled:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kEV_YnDkXk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzfWY3xfrl0
monokoma
October 9th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
That was an awesome presentation, i’m going to add the videos in the article, thanks Robert :)