Fallout Designer Jason Anderson Joins inXile For 'Epic' RPG

Jason Anderson, a member of the original team that created Fallout for Interplay Productions, has joined developer inXile Entertainment as creative director. According to the statement by inXile, the studio will be opening up a second team to develop a project "that will push the boundaries of RPGs." Anderson served as a designer and lead artist of the classic post-apocalyptic RPG, made early design contributions to its immediate followup Fallout 2 before departing with other key team members to form Troika Games. He co-led development of Troika's debut game Arcane: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura, and was creative director on its final project, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. In joining inXile, Anderson will be reuiniting with Brian Fargo, who originally founded Interplay in 1984 and left the company in 2002, and whose name is the first text to appear in Fallout's striking introductory cinematic. Fargo founded Newport Beach, California-based inXile in 2002 and serves as its CEO. It released a 2004 tongue-in-cheek reimagining of early Interplay RPG The Bard's Tale, as well as commercial versions of Flash game Line Rider, and is developing action game Hei$t for Codemasters. "Jason has an extensive resume of creating amazing RPGs over the past two decades and we feel very lucky to have his talent directed to one of our upcoming projects," said Fargo. "His leadership and vision will allow us to have a second development team focused on an epic game that will push the boundaries of RPGs." Prior to the inXile announcement, Anderson was last known to be working back at Interplay alongside fellow Fallout co-designer Chris Taylor on a new MMO, possibly based on the Fallout property. [Update: Following the announcement, Anderson spoke with Gamasutra about the new position.]