Not what Bethesda Game Studios finally put together in the late 2000s, but the original concept.

The United West Team mod team has released the first demo of Revelation Blues. It would tell the story of the cancelled Fallout 3 (Van Buren) in a Fallout: New Vegas mod. Given Van Buren’s strong ties to the New Vegas storyline, the idea makes sense. The demo explores an interesting area that would have been part of Van Buren. Burham Springs is a largely abandoned town that sits atop a constantly burning coal seam. The town’s defining disaster was caused by NCR soldiers trying to smoke out bandits fleeing after the Hoover Dam attack, and the resulting mutants were considered “gehenna” and “molech” by the people of New Canaan.

Obsidian Entertainment was founded by the Black Isle veterans, and it’s easy to see how the Van Buren concepts ended up in Fallout: New Vegas. Burham Springs shows a mature NCR embroiled in imperial atrocities, bandits, Hoover Dam, and New Canaan. Van Buren would have made Caesar’s Legion, Joshua Graham, and Big MT part of the story. It is this intrinsic connection that makes Fallout: New Vegas fun and a worthy host for a reimagining of what Van Buren could have become.

Revelation Blues is not the only Van Buren revival project, as developer Adam Lacko has been working on Project Van Buren for years. However, he’s not rebuilding the whole thing, but rather reconstructing Van Buren’s original mechanics, perspective, and art style using Black Isle’s development documentation and leaked builds of the game. In other words, finishing what Black Isle started.

We can still twist Fallout 3. Troika Games’ concept was reworked into a standalone RPG when Bethesda acquired the rights. The company then went bankrupt and the project was never completed. Troika was founded by the original Fallout developers, Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson…

Source: PCGamer