Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. Every Thursday GTA 6 O'clock Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts. Every Friday Knowledge From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon. Every Thursday The Setup Every Wednesday Switch 2 Spotlight Every Saturday The Watchlist Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Before Bethesda Game Studios took Fallout for itself in 2007, Interplay Entertainment made the series we now know and love in 1997 with the first-ever entry – one that we can thank for many of the features that are now iconic alongside the Fallout name. If you've played any Fallout game before, then you're likely more than familiar with its whole dramatic death scene thing – you know, the slow-motion cuts, blood spewing from wounds, and gory moments that almost feel comical considering the post-apocalyptic setting and what have you. Well, it turns out that the conception of Fallout's violence is actually rooted in the desire to make it all a little bit humorous… and disgusting, of course. Leonard Boyarsky, who worked as art director on the first Fallout and then as a lead on its 1998 sequel, reveals as much during a recent interview with Game Informer focusing on the history of the now-beloved RPG series. "I remember for some reason, we had nowhere to meet at one point, and we ended up meeting in Brian Fargo's [executive producer] office," recalls Boyarsky – and this meeting is exactly where the magic happened. Fallout 3's VATS system helped compensate for Bethesda's lack of shooting chops Fallout co-creator "would have gone in a different direction" than Bethesda, but "sales say people love what they did" Bethesda was scared of making Fallout 3, but by Fallout 4 it had chilled out: "we don't have to be so reverential now" "It was the core team, there were maybe, like, six of us, he continues, calling it "a surreal experience" overall. "That's where I started really pushing the idea that we'd have these over-the-top, really violent deaths, which to me were basically like an R-rated version of Warner Bros cartoons. It was supposed to be that over the top. It was supposed to be funny. It wasn't supposed to be taken seriously." Boyarsky concludes that "it was supposed to really be this dark humor and come across as funny" – and honestly, I'd argue it is, even today. Sure, the newer Fallout games aren't the same as the OG two, focusing more on open-world exploration than before… but they do still have that same sort of silly, cartoonish violence, if you ask me. The whole Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (known as V.A.T.S.) is evidence enough. You can't exactly slow down time and selectively blow a creature's limbs or brain off in every game, after all, and that's the sort of stuff that makes Fallout so special – and no, I don't mean strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. Todd Howard "stole" his brother's copy of Fallout during his early days at Bethesda "and never gave it back to him" as he "loved the vibe" of the RPG