Feature: Exploring A Devastated World - Emil Pagliarulo And Fallout 3

Author: by Staff

Coming off of its Game Developers Choice Awards wins for writing and game of the year, Emil Paglirulo discusses the creative processes behind Fallout 3 in terms of writing, design, and DLC, in Gamasutra's latest feature. Pagliarulo points out that one of the most important facets of the game is the rich heritage of computer RPG gaming that has led to the creative direction behind Bethesda's characteristic exploratory RPG style, which has found broad success in the face of the decline of the genre at other developers. Says Pagliarulo, "Our goal, anyway, is to capture a little bit of that magic of PC games. I think a lot of our audience is in that same category. They see what we do and appreciate it. I think there's definitely some of that going on. There's not a lot of that on the console, so it's almost like we have that novelty quality, too. We have those niches -- the giant open game niche, and also this PC game novelty niche, too." Pagliarulo also discusses the team's decision to modify the game's ending via DLC -- removing the hard, console-style stop and replacing it with a neverending experience much like Oblivion had. Todd Howard and I had a conversation, and [realized] it would be more seamless than we had first thought. We looked at it, and said, "You know what? It feels pretty natural. It almost feels like this is the way it should have ended to begin with." You talk about player feedback -- so people didn't like that the game ended. Three or four years ago, if people didn't like that the game ended, we'd say, 'We'll take that into consideration for the next game.' Now, you're reacting to that feedback almost immediately. We're able to, months later, respond to that player feedback and put out DLC. For us, it's been a tremendous success. We're actually surprised that more companies don't do it, but we also know how difficult it is to do." You can read much more in the full feature, which is published on Gamasutra.com today.