Another day, another one-month-year-old site that's not even a quarter of our size gets an exclusive interview with Todd Howard. The interview is short, but the questions are fairly well put.<blockquote>videogaming247: You’ve been keen to stress that Fallout 3 isn’t a shooter, that it’s an RPG in which you shoot. Firstly, why does the game’s classification matter so much, and, secondly, doesn’t the fact that the game has shooting elements means it’s going to appeal to both those interested in RPGs and those interested in FPSs?
Todd Howard: You’re probably right, in that it appeals to fans of both, and we’re OK with that. I don’t know that the game’s classification does matter much. I like to think of RPGs as the best genre-blenders, in that you can do anything in them. No type of interaction is off limits and you can have action parts, puzzle solving parts, or anything else. When you’re making a shooter, you never ask “can the player get married and have kids?” When you’re making an RPG, that type of thinking goes on all the time, so while it may look like a shooter, I think that dramatically undersells what the game does.
Obviously, the game’s pedigree is second to none, but this is a radical departure from the first two titles. What elements have you been careful to preserve as Fallout makes the jump to 3D?
The world around you and the lore of the Fallout world, it’s very important to us, and we’ve always loved it. It was that world we wanted to make come alive. In addition, I think the basic character system of Fallout, with your SPECIAL attributes and perks, is something we’ve tried hard to maintain. It’s a great system, where you have to make hard choices and those choices really define who you’re going to be and what type of game you’re going to play.
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Twelve alternate endings sounds, to be frank, mental. Why so many? Do you feel the need for this product to be definitive?
That number is artificially inflated, in that what you get at the very end is based on a number of things you’ve done. Some of those tweaks to the ending are pretty small, so I think it’s better to simply say the game has multiple endings based on what you did. Some of the really big decisions that affect the end you make right at the end, but some of them deal more with your karma, and how you’ve lived your life.</blockquote>Link: Todd Howard interview on videogaming247.
Todd Howard: You’re probably right, in that it appeals to fans of both, and we’re OK with that. I don’t know that the game’s classification does matter much. I like to think of RPGs as the best genre-blenders, in that you can do anything in them. No type of interaction is off limits and you can have action parts, puzzle solving parts, or anything else. When you’re making a shooter, you never ask “can the player get married and have kids?” When you’re making an RPG, that type of thinking goes on all the time, so while it may look like a shooter, I think that dramatically undersells what the game does.
Obviously, the game’s pedigree is second to none, but this is a radical departure from the first two titles. What elements have you been careful to preserve as Fallout makes the jump to 3D?
The world around you and the lore of the Fallout world, it’s very important to us, and we’ve always loved it. It was that world we wanted to make come alive. In addition, I think the basic character system of Fallout, with your SPECIAL attributes and perks, is something we’ve tried hard to maintain. It’s a great system, where you have to make hard choices and those choices really define who you’re going to be and what type of game you’re going to play.
(...)
Twelve alternate endings sounds, to be frank, mental. Why so many? Do you feel the need for this product to be definitive?
That number is artificially inflated, in that what you get at the very end is based on a number of things you’ve done. Some of those tweaks to the ending are pretty small, so I think it’s better to simply say the game has multiple endings based on what you did. Some of the really big decisions that affect the end you make right at the end, but some of them deal more with your karma, and how you’ve lived your life.</blockquote>Link: Todd Howard interview on videogaming247.
