Bethesda-Interplay settlement official, Bethesda gains full Fallout MMO rights

Fallout New Vegas Old World Blues

The bombs have dropped, the dust has settled, and Fallout Online, sadly, is no more. After an ugly legal scuffle that lasted nearly two years, Bethesda and Interplay have cased trading blows and started trading cash. More specifically, $2 million - for which Bethesda receives all Fallout MMO-related rights, according to VG247 . Interplay, meanwhile, can continue to peddle its own post-apocalyptic wares in the form of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics - but only until December 2013.

For the time being, Bethesda's merely happy to be "able to develop future Fallout titles for our fans without third party involvement or the overhang of others' legal claims," but could a Bethesda-born attempt at some irradiated online action be headed our way? At this point, it's a toss up. But given Skyrim's all-consuming success with an allegedly draconian single-player-only approach, I'm not counting on it.

Latest in Fallout
Male and Female Vault Dweller holding guns and cresting a hill with ruined city in background
The New Vegas remake of the Fallout 3 that never was just got its first demo, not to be confused with the straight-up remake of the cancelled Fallout 3 or, indeed, Fallout 3
Lucy smiling while using her pip boy
Ella Purnell dreads being typecast for her 'poop finger' in Fallout: 'This finger is the bane of my life'
Fallout 76 - a player in a vault suit gives a thumbs up
Fallout 76's former project lead says it's still his favourite game he worked on, but the initial reception was demoralising: 'I got yelled at in an Apple Store, I'll never forget'
Mortimer Goth swanning around inside a New Vegas casino built inside the Sims 2
A Fallout: New Vegas fan is so fed up waiting for a remake he's decided to do it himself. The twist? He's making it in the Sims 2
Maybe I'll finally stop getting lost in Fallout: New Vegas' Bison Steve Hotel thanks to this new minimap mod
A jumpsuit-clad Lucy, played by Ella Purnell, emerges from a vault in the Fallout TV series.
Ella Purnell and Walton Goggins sure are excited for everyone to see Fallout season 2: 'No one's going to be able to predict what happens. There's some big twists this time around'
Latest in News
Orithopter shooting down another in Dune
Dune: Awakening confirms air-to-air combat in ornithopters
live action Jimbo the Jester from Balatro holding a playing card and addressing the camera
LocalThunk forbids AI-generated art on the Balatro subreddit: 'I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds'
Inzoi - A Zoi's face in three graphical presets showing a progression from a slightly blurry minimum specs to a higher fidelity recommended specs.
Oh great, the full Inzoi system requirements are posted and I'm barely above the minimum specs so I guess my Zois will be beautifully blurry
Mark Darrah
BioWare veteran says a big delay is better than lots of little ones, because sometimes you just gotta 'burn it down and take the other fork in the road'
Two rising ronin facing each other
Rise of the Ronin is another crappy PC port, performance patch coming 'soon'
Defiance players
A dead MMO that launched with a now-cancelled TV show in 2013 is coming back 4 years after servers were shut down