Interview with Pete Hines on Fallout: New Vegas

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Shacknews was able to catch up with Pete Hines of Bethesda at the press event in London today to ask a few questions about the recently announced Fallout: New Vegas.

Shack: When did Bethesda start thinking about a Fallout spin-off?

Pete Hines: It's something that we've discussed at night for a while, and just had talked about doing. And we said, well, if we're going to do this, we want to do it with the right kinds of folks, and the folks that could do right by it, have the right kind of experience, the right background.

Honestly, we just felt like Obsidian was a great fit for that. They have experience doing this kind of thing, they have guys that worked on the original Fallout games. We really liked their idea for what it is they wanted to do, and we just said, "Okay."

Shack: Was there ever a stage where it was an internal project, or was the intention always to hand the franchise to a third party and publish?

Pete Hines: The idea was, put aside for a second what Bethesda Game Studios is going to do going forward, as it relates to anything. Elder Scrolls, Fallout, no matter what--forget about that for a second and, if you do, would you do this if you could do it and not affect what they wanted to do? Could they peacefully co-exist?

And we felt like, yeah, we could work with somebody else to make a game like this and still let the Bethesda Game Studios guys focus on their next projects and the things that they're working on. And so we did.

Shack: What has Bethesda's attitude been in terms of allowing Obsidian freedom to create their own Fallout game?

Pete Hines: I think we tried very hard not to put much in the way of parameters on them. To let them kind of come up with the idea. So we didn't go to them and say, we want a game that is set here, and--we didn't do that. We said, "What would you do with it? If we were going to do this, what would you guys like to do?"

Shack: So you asked them for a pitch, as opposed to pitching them a project.

Pete Hines: Correct, correct. And honestly, generally speaking, that's how it works best, which is: you've gotta have people who are really vested in the idea that it's their creation. "This is what makes us excited. If we could do this, this is what we would want to do."

You may help them mold or frame that, but if that's what they're excited about, then that's what you should do. As opposed to, I come up with something that would be cool, and you go to them and they go, "Oh, okay. Well, sure." You're just not necessarily going to get the same passion or excitement from the team. And those are the guys who need to be the most excited about it, because that's what they're going to go into the office and be creative on and make for the foreseeable future.

But it was good. I think we were all on the same page in terms of the kinds of things that we wanted to do, and what it could be. And yeah, so now I want to play it.

For the entire interview, head on over here.