Box art isn't traditionally the first bit of art that's drawn up when making a game - whatever's printed on physical boxes and digital thumbnails usually comes when it's time to market the thing - but that's exactly what happened with Fallout 3 as the devs thought it was important to start at the very beginning and reimagine Fallout 1's box art.
"It started with the box art," lead artist Istvan Pely remembered in an interview with Edge Magazine. "The original Fallout 1 box, with the power armor on it, was iconic. To me, that was Fallout. So, that was the first thing, the first asset."
Looking at both games' boxes side-by-side is an interesting experience; both centre around that ever recognizable power suit, but Fallout 3's grimmer, murkier color palette drenched in shadows, alongside the power suit-wearers sunken pose, definitely shows where the industry was at in and around 2008.
"The next iconic thing was the Pip-Boy," Pely continued. "It's kind of an abstracted thing in the early games, but we wanted it to be an actual, physical device that you wear on your wrist. And then it was the Vault suit…"
Fallout 3's associate art producer Angela Browder recalled, "we had to decide what it was supposed to be made of. And then: what was the right shade of blue? Then: which gold looks like gold, but not gold - but also not yellow? The Vault suit took us forever."
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