There is a moment near the beginning of Fallout 3 – the landmark 2008 action role-playing game from Bethesda Games Studios – that is imprinted on anyone who experienced it at the time. In it, the player-created main character opens the exit to the subterranean vault they’ve called home for 19 years, and steps into the blinding light of the Wasteland for the first time, a literal world of potential stretching as far as the eye can see.
‘I was, right out of the gate, blown away,’ says Jonathan Nolan, the co-creator of HBO’s Westworld and co-writer of The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige and Interstellar, alongside big brother Chris. During a conversation with Total Film in early February, Nolan is reminiscing about ‘looking for a new distraction’ in late 2008, months after The Dark Knight hit cinemas, and being drawn to a copy of hot new thing Fallout 3.
