Editing Fallout (franchise) (section)

== Origins ==
The ideas of the ''Fallout'' series began with [[Interplay Productions]]' ''[[Wasteland (video game)|Wasteland]]'', released in 1988. At that time, Interplay was not a publisher and used [[Electronic Arts]] for distribution of the game. According to Interplay's founder, [[Brian Fargo]], they wanted to explore a post-apocalyptic setting and created ''Wasteland'' for that. Sometime after release, Interplay decided to shift focus and become a publisher while still developing games. Fargo wanted to continue to use the ''Wasteland'' [[intellectual property]] but could not negotiate the rights back from [[Electronic Arts]].

Still wanting to do something in a post-apocalyptic setting, Fargo and his team decided to make a new setting and game. They determined what aspects of ''Wasteland'' were positives and wrote and developed a new game around them.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.pcgamer.com/the-complete-history-of-fallout/ |title=The complete history of Fallout |first=Ian |last=Dranfield |date=April 4, 2019 |access-date=April 4, 2019 |magazine=[[PC Gamer]]}}</ref> According to designer [[Christopher Taylor (game designer)|Chris Taylor]], they took major inspiration from the novel ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]]'' (1959) and the films ''[[Mad Max 2]]'' (1981) and ''[[The City of Lost Children]]'' (1995).<ref>{{cite web |last=Taylor |first=Chris |date=July 28, 2022 |title=On 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' |url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32269576 |website=Hacker News |location= |publisher= |access-date=April 21, 2025 |quote=In the early 90s, I read all of the [[Hugo Award for Best Novel|Hugo winners]] at the time. ''A Canticle for Leibowitz'' was one of my favorites. A few years later, it was one of the three major influences we used when making the original ''Fallout'' (along with ''Road Warrior'' and ''City of Lost Children'').}}</ref> The result was the first ''Fallout'' games, which were released nearly ten years after ''Wasteland''.