The sequel to Fallout 2 being developed by Black Isle Studios in the early 2000s was codenamed Van Buren, and when it was shut down in 2003—after which Bethesda picked up the ball, but made a completely different game—it became a kind of lost relic for Fallout tragics.
Van Buren's the mythic could-have-been that almost-was, a Fallout RPG that would have had everything we loved about the first two games in it and none of the stuff we didn't love about the Fallout 3 we eventually got. Because it never got made it can stay perfect in our imaginations, never having to live up to reality.
