First reported by DSO Gaming, the United West Workforce 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 prime of a perpetually burning coal seam that resembles the real-life Centralia Mine Fireplace. The city’s formative catastrophe was brought on by NCR troopers making an attempt 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 possibly can see how Obsidian, itself based by Black Isle veterans, shaped New Vegas with concepts from Van Buren. With Burham, we have a mature NCR blundering into imperial atrocities, powder gangers, the Hoover Dam, and New Canaan. Van Buren was additionally to function Caesar’s Legion, Joshua Graham, and the Huge 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 Mission Van Buren. Slightly than a reimagining, PVB seems to be to reconstruct Van Buren with its authentic mechanics, perspective, and artwork model utilizing Black Isle’s improvement documentation and a leaked construct of the sport.
Lacko’s shared an replace on the mission as just lately as this January on X, however I’ve obtained excellent news and unhealthy information. The excellent news is that Lacko was introduced on as lead developer for New Blood’s Fallout-inspired, retro-futurist CRPG. The unhealthy information is that that is understandably his main focus over PVB, and the mission is probably going nonetheless a methods away from completion.
Earlier than coming again for air to the Fallout 3 we truly obtained, there’s yet one more layer to the canceled Fallout 3 iceberg: Troika Video games’ pitch that was reworked right into a standalone RPG when Bethesda secured the rights, and finally canceled when the corporate went beneath. Troika was based by Fallout 1 devs Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson, and the studio produced three of probably the most creative, 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 totally different from Earth. The first proof of it that continues to be is a brief demo video on YouTube, and a video by Tim Cain on the topic.
