First reported by DSO Gaming, the United West Team modding group has launched its first demo for Revelation Blues, an try to inform the story of Black Isle Studios’ canceled Fallout 3 mission, code named Van Buren, as a mod for Fallout: New Vegas. Van Buren has a deep connection to New Vegas’ story, and even earlier than 2010, was a little bit of a “what may need been” supply of fascination for a sure model of RPG sicko.
The demo facilities on a very attention-grabbing space that was slated for Van Buren, “Burham Springs,” a largely deserted city situated on high of a perpetually burning coal seam that resembles the real-life Centralia Mine Fire. The city’s formative catastrophe was attributable to NCR troopers trying to smoke out fleeing powder gangers after an assault on the Hoover Dam, and the ensuing mutants had been deemed “gehennas” and “molechs” by residents of New Canaan.
Already, you’ll be able to see how Obsidian, itself based by Black Isle veterans, fashioned New Vegas with concepts from Van Buren. With Burham, we have got a mature NCR blundering into imperial atrocities, powder gangers, the Hoover Dam, and New Canaan. Van Buren was additionally to characteristic Caesar’s Legion, Joshua Graham, and the Big MT as a part of its story. That intrinsic connection makes New Vegas a enjoyable, becoming host for a reimagining of what Van Buren may need been.
Revelation Blues additionally is not the one recreation on the town for Van Buren revivals: Developer Adam Lacko has been working for years on Project Van Buren. Rather than a reimagining, PVB seems to reconstruct Van Buren with its authentic mechanics, perspective, and artwork type utilizing Black Isle’s growth documentation and a leaked construct of the sport.
Lacko’s shared an replace on the mission as lately as this January on X, however I’ve received excellent news and dangerous information. The excellent news is that Lacko was introduced on as lead developer for New Blood’s Fallout-inspired, retro-futurist CRPG. The dangerous information is that that is understandably his main focus over PVB, and the mission is probably going nonetheless a methods away from completion.
Before coming again for air to the Fallout 3 we truly received, there’s yet one more layer to the canceled Fallout 3 iceberg: Troika Games’ pitch that was reworked right into a standalone RPG when Bethesda secured the rights, and in the end canceled when the corporate went below. Troika was based by Fallout 1 devs Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson, and the studio produced three of probably the most ingenious, distinctive, and replayable CRPGs ever.
I do not essentially mourn Troika’s Fallout 3 as a lot as I do the incredible-sounding sci-fi setting it pivoted into with the mission, one which mixed magic with retro-futurism on an alien world very completely different from Earth. The main proof of it that is still is a brief demo video on YouTube, and a video by Tim Cain on the topic.
