Fallout 4, despite not officially existing, has been at the top of gamers most anticipated list since the Obsidian-developed Fallout: New Vegas released in 2009. While not officially working on the next entry in the acclaimed sci-fi RPG, New Vegas director Josh Sawyer says he would love to work with the franchise once again and shared his ideas on where to take Fallout next.
Speaking with IGN about Obsidian's upcoming RPG Pillars of Eternity Sawyer says he thinks Fallout is a "really fun setting and intellectual property to work with," before going on to explore some possible locations for Fallout 4 to take place were he working on the project.
"I like doing stuff on the West coast because we're close by, and that's kind of been a tradition for the West coast developers of that stuff," Sawyer says. "I think going back to the Boneyard, LA, would be pretty cool but another area that I think Nathanial Chapman who used to work at Obsidian, he thought New Orleans would be a really cool setting for a Fallout game and I think that'd be really cool as well."
The idea of a Fallout MMO has been around for a while, and Sawyer says there is definitely potential for an online Fallout.
"Personally, I think there are some interesting things that could happen with Fallout in an MMO environment," Sawyer says. "There are some folks who kind of cobbled together all the Fallout 2 resources into kind of a makeshift MMO, made by fans. It was pretty cool but insane. It's like if you take all the most brutal aspects of Ultima Online and multiply them by five, you have that game. So I think there's interesting potential for an online version of Fallout."
We likely won't be seeing Sawyer's idea of a post-apocalyptic Big Easy any time soon, as Fallout 4 has long been rumored to currently be in development by Bethesda Softworks and set in Boston, where players will explore the remains of MIT and the post-apocalyptic version of Massachusets known as the "Commonwealth."
The Maryland-based Bethesda responsible for Fallout 3 could definitely be following the tradition Sawyer mentioned of taking inspiration from areas close to home and bringing them to life in-game. Fallout 3 took place in Washington D.C., right next door to Maryland, and Massachusets isn't too far away either. By using areas close to home developers can more easily travel to the locations for research purposes, allowing for more authentic digital versions of real-world locations.
Where Fallout 4 will take gamers and whether or not it will have an online component is anybody's guess, but an entry taking place in the as of yet unexplored American South would be a welcome change of scenery.
