Fallout MMO Message Board

You may remember that last week we brought the news that the legal fusspottery over the ownership of the rights to make a Fallout MMO had come to an end. We just didn’t know which way the nuclear chips had fallen. It seems things fell in Bethesda’s favour, in a fight that now looks rather like Goliath squished David with his fist. Eurogamer are reporting that Interplay have completely lost any rights to make a Fallout MMO, with intellectual property rights entirely belonging to Bethesda. However, there’s a sizable fee of $2 million heading Interplay’s way from Bethesda owners Zenimax, as part of the deal.

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The neverending tiff between Interplay and Bethesda over development of a Fallout-based MMO recently got a bit more backstory on the end of the former. Interplay president Eric Caen recently said in an interview with Edge that Bethesda was offered the rights to the Fallout MMO for $50 million, explaining that "the MMOG strength of this universe is huge." According to Caen, Bethesda passed on the license for a Fallout MMO, which Interplay then began developing with certain "conditions" established by Bethesda -- such as a required development start date of April 4, 2009.

The rest, as they say is history -- Bethesda filed a termination letter for Interplay to stop working on the project last year, claiming that the developer had missed the aforementioned start date. Caen contends that claim, saying Bethesda was merely looking for a way to acquire the rights to a Fallout MMO without fronting the $50 million price tag, which is a large sum of cash. We've contacted Bethesda for a response to Caen's claims.

#legalfallout The legal battle between Fallout IP holder Bethesda and original creator Interplay rages on, despite a dropped appeal granting false hopes to fans eager for a massively-multiplayer online Fallout title. More »

Interplay can continue to develop Fallout MMO.

For those of you just joining us, former Fallout owner Interplay has been working on Project V13 -- a Fallout MMO in all but name -- going back a couple of years now. Bethesda - current owner of the Fallout franchise and developer and publisher of Fallout 3 - was understandably nonplussed by this fact, and the two companies have been going back and forth in court over the rights to use the Fallout name ever since. Well, according to Fallout fan site Duck and Cover, the two have made nice, with Bethesda dropping its attempts to block Interplay from having anything to do with the franchise.

The site reports that it spoke with "Frymuchan," an investor in Interplay who has provided updates on the proceedings since they began. According to legal documents furnished by him, both companies came to an unspecified agreement whereby Bethesda would allow Interplay to continue on its merry way with the franchise. He called this "awesome news for Interplay stock," opining that he believes "part of the deal was that Interplay drop their countersuit against Bethesda."

Bear in mind that neither company has issued a formal statement on the outcome, and while the investor believes "this will likely mean that V13 will be moving full steam ahead," we'll await word from Interplay before getting too excited. Heck, the beta isn't even supposed to start until 2012.

[Via VG247]

It seems all the legal rigmarole between Interplay and Bethesda isn't slowing down the former's work on Project: V13, an MMO set in the latter's Fallout universe. At least, that seems to be the message from Interplay, which recently announced a development partnership with Masthead Studios, which is lending Interplay its technology, tools and resources as it continues work on the post-apocalyptic online game. In fact, Interplay is so confident in the game's future release, it went ahead and announced a tentative date for the game's beta testing phase: 2012. Perfect! That should leave a few months for them to work out the kinks, then a few months for us to enjoy the game post-launch, and then the sun will explode.

Mark your calendars.

Early screens at what Interplay has been cooking up.

Developer gives us first glimpse of its massive post-apocalyptic title.

Interplay's Fallout project has some new art.