InXile Entertainment - hanging on to Van Buren

Hexprone

Hexprone

Thou hast lost an eighth!
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Fallout Van Buren is one of the great might-have-beens of PC gaming, but for the last few years I've felt pretty content to think that I did get to play much of its planned content in an altered form in New Vegas. InXile may not feel that's enough, though -- back in October, they trademarked Van Buren.

No detailed plans are yet available, but Brian Fargo has dropped a few more hints to Eurogamer:

I asked if Fargo was doing anything with the Van Buren trademark. "Not yet," he replied. "But there were some things, some ideas, that Chris Avellone had for doing something that made the post-apoc -- a twist on the whole what-was-being-done that we really loved. So we talked about it and we thought why not grab the rights so we can entertain this one of these days.

"But nothing now," he stressed. "We have enough on our plate to be doing that right this second."
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Among the the things on his plate is Numenera. Can we expect that this year?

Fargo wouldn't commit to a 2015 release when we spoke.

"We have to get to our backers pretty soon, the beta version or Early Access or whatever you want to call it," he said, "and that is coming here late summer. The [final release] date gets determined based upon that."
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More information.
 
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Neat. I wonder how they would differentiate it enough from Wasteland though? Odd for one developer to have two franchises in the same setting.

Unless they made the jump to first person perspective...
 
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Drithius said:
Neat. I wonder how they would differentiate it enough from Wasteland though? Odd for one developer to have two franchises in the same setting.
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They don't own any part of Fallout, so the exact setting might be uncertain. We could be in "spiritual successor" territory.

Or they may be sitting on the trademark just in hopes that Bethesda would be interested in hiring them to do another side-story like Vegas.
 
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I'm not sure why they trademarked this. Van Buren was the project "codename" for the next version of Fallout - it certainly wasn't going to be called "Fallout - Van Buren". So I don't see the purpose of this, even if they intended to make a spiritual successor to the isometric Fallout games.
 
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Well I'll instantly back it when they finally announce a new kickstarter in a few years. It will of course be different then Wasteland 2, and I cant wait to see what Avellone came up with. Would be nice to see inXile & Obsidian collaborate on the game.
 
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Couchpotato said:
Well I'll instantly back it when they finally announce a new kickstarter in a few years. It will of course be different then Wasteland 2, and I cant wait to see what Avellone came up with. Would be nice to see inXile & Obsidian collaborate on the game.
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An InXile & Obsidian co-venture along the lines of Fallout: New Vegas? That could be interesting. Bethesda certainly made enough money off of Fallout: New Vegas that I could imagine them being up for that. Although I also imagine that "metacritic" wouldn't be allowed to appear in any of the contract terms if Obsidian and InXile were to agree.
 
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jhwisner said:
An InXile & Obsidian co-venture along the lines of Fallout: New Vegas?
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It would be interesting as they already share assets, and other tech for their games. Still it probably wont happen anytime soon, and that makes me a sad potato.:(
 
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I hope they will make it. It was heartbreaking to see materials from almost finished game knowing it will never be released. And they will get my money too
 
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I really hope that at least some of the original creators remain involved in continuing the west-coast Fallout storyline.

I like Fallout 3, but to me the New-England Fallouts are the side-story: it's Vegas that continues the narrative of the birth and growing pains of the New California Republic begun in 1 and 2. In my mind, Vegas is Fallout 3 and Bethesda's game is Fallout: D.C.

It would be great to have a west coast entry in the series in parallel to each of Bethesda's in-house games, and it seems to me like it would be financially plausible as well.
 
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Fargo tweeted about having "a few ideas that are not based on existing games" and "saving Van Buren trademark for a rainy day". So here's to hoping that their next kickstarter will be an original IP.
 
As someone who went to Martin Van Buren High School, I'm sure this is going to be a game about the trials and tribulations of high school in Queens, NY ;)
 
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Honestly I would rather they focused on their wasteland titles, this seems unneeded. Make a wasteland 3 and go that route.
 
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Sacred_Path said:
Fargo tweeted about having "a few ideas that are not based on existing games" and "saving Van Buren trademark for a rainy day". So here's to hoping that their next kickstarter will be an original IP.
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The time travel RPG is next :D
 
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Grifman said:
I'm not sure why they trademarked this. Van Buren was the project "codename" for the next version of Fallout - it certainly wasn't going to be called "Fallout - Van Buren". So I don't see the purpose of this, even if they intended to make a spiritual successor to the isometric Fallout games.
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This also baffles me. If Bethesda is not involved/approving, then can they even make use of Van Buren as a copyright if it pulls directly on the Fallout history? That's the only reason to trademark it... all those Fallout fans that know what Van Buren is/was. If they do it outside of Fallout, then the trademark is not nearly as useful.

"From the developers who almost brought you Fallout: Van Buren" does not sound all that catchy to me. Neither does "The story that was almost told in Fallout: Van Buren". But I greatly enjoy Fallout and Wasteland, so if something is created out of this, great! It just seems nonsensical to trademark a working/internal name of a Fallout game, doubly so without Bethesda being involved.

Oh... hi all... new here... first post... all that jazz.
 
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Maybe Chris Avellone joins the Van Buren project...
 
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welcome Darkbridger. I'm curious as well. If Van Buren doesn't have anything in common with Fallout, why grab the copywright? Maybe they want to merge Van Buren and Wasteland into some type of hybrid. Could be interesting....
 
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My opinion is InXile should market Van Buren as the "Fallout 3" that all the F1 and F2 fans really wanted. Of course without actually mentioning the word Fallout so as to avoid any lawsuits...
 
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