New Fallout 3 Trailer Teases, Perplexes

Finally: Bethesda's given us a fleeting glimpse of the sequel to the series everyone remembers as better than it was (it was good, no doubt about it, but water tastes like wine in a desert, which was the state of RPGs in 1997). Lots of happy sighing and celebrating over this cryptic trailer, so let's stay real here. Choosing the "style" of the original was a no-brainer, so I don't give Bethesda points for aping Tim Cain's vision to a tee, though I'll sigh (with relief) along with the collective on that one, at least.

We're shown two minutes, over two-thirds of which are spent panning slowly (if delightfully, courtesy The Ink Spots' "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire") back from the interior of a 1950s-style "radiation king" radio and through a gutted bus full of curios like hula dancer dolls, toolboxes, toy trucks, and teddy bears, then sidewise and out for a panoramic shot of a post-apocalyptic urban landscape. At the end, an armored up Vader-esque figure (a soldier sporting the technology-worshipping "Brotherhood of Steel" logo) turns, breath hissing, to look at the camera, then blackness as Ron Perlman (hey Hellboy!) says simply "War...war never changes." (Perlman did the narration for both prior Fallout games, including the strategy spinoff, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.)

The hoopity-doo here is clearly the stunning Gamebryo engine (used for Oblivion), which according to Bethesda's Pete Hines, is rendering that trailer in-engine, i.e. that's how the game's probably going to look (or better). While visual muscularity does as much for me as watching bodybuilders in harnesses pull semi-trailers, I'm a sucker for high-style, and this trailer has it in spades. While it technically guarantees nothing, I think it's safe to say Bethesda knows what fans of the series want to see, and this trailer was carefully orchestrated to ensure that happened.

What we're left foggy on is the actual gameplay. Presumably we'll get the SPECIAL (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck) character creation system, and all the traits and perks you can shake a hacked off irradiated limb at. The setting still has that paranoid post-World War II aesthetic, though we can probably assume the timeframe remains the 22nd (or later) century. Anything more is speculation. The prior games were freeform, which dovetails nicely with Bethesda's open-ended approach, and yet Fallout isn't about "running around, getting lost in the wilderness" the way their Elder Scrolls series is. I suspect Fallout 3 will thus be somewhat limited in locational scope, i.e. no roaming around an entire country, in trade for fleshed out and tightened up detail. You know how everything tended to blend together architecturally once you'd seen a dozen cities and dungeons in Oblivion? My guess (or hope) is that we'll see more hand-crafted, individualized locales here. Also, since it's single-player (again, I assume only), I have much higher expectations for Bethesda's NPC A.I., which got predictable and repetitive much too quickly in Oblivion. The first time you encounter an imperial forester hunting deer in the woods around the Imperial City, it's startling, but once you realize he's simply running a robotically repetitious chase routine day in, day out, it loses its luster.

That said, I have no doubt Bethesda's design team is up to the task. I was one of the first celebrating Arena back in 1994 when everyone's attention was on Ultima VIII, and the jump from Arena to Oblivion is of an almost immeasurable order of magnitude.

Hey, at least we know it's coming sooner than next decade. According to the trailer, we can get our mitts on Fallout 3 by fall 2008.

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