After acquiring the complete rights to the Fallout series from Interplay Entertainment and Black Isle Studios in 2007, The Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda took its first crack at the post-nuclear RPG franchise with 2008's Fallout 3. Released across Xbox, Windows PC, and PlayStation, it was a critical and commercial success, with players greatly appreciating how well it translated the isometric series into 3D spaces.
"The sort of vindication for us was, when we did PAX, we had this big live demo of Fallout 3 where everyone could play for, like, a half hour or something. ... We were very nervous. Like, 'Hopefully this goes off without a hitch,'" lead designer Emil Pagliarulo told Game Informer in its excellent An Oral History of Fallout interview.
