Q&As// Bethesda's Pete Hines

Last week, Bethesda spent a huge great wad of cash on showing off its upcoming third-party games and upcoming Fallout 3 DLC to a huge great group of games journalists.

The upshot of that here on SPOnG was previews of Broken Steel, Wet and Rogue Warrior as well as chats about the A2M-developed game and the Rebellion title. That's on top of news about Broken Steel's impending release, Mickey Rourke signing on for Rogue Warrior, Elder Scrolls novels and Fallout New Vegas.

To tidy it all up, SPOnG bent the ear of Bethesda's VP of marketing, Pete Hines, to get some questions answered...


SPOnG: Did you always plan to do DLC that would continue Fallout 3, or did that come about due to fan criticism about the game ending? To what degree did fan reaction to Fallout 3 ending motivate the making of Broken Steel?

Pete Hines:That was specifically in response to folks reacting to the fact that the game had an ending, and they wanted to keep playing. So yes, I'd say fan reaction played a big role.


SPOnG: Following the release of Broken Steel, will we see more DLC for Fallout 3, or is this the end? Any chance of a Shivering Isles-sized expansion?

Pete Hines: No plans for a Shivering Isles expansion. We just felt like it was better to focus on the kind of DLC we've been doing as opposed to something that takes so long to make and comes out a year later, like Shivering Isles did. This is the last of the three we had announced we wanted to do, no announced plans beyond that.


SPOnG: Will there be enough quest experience to be had in Broken Steel for players to level up to 30 without having to grind on pre-DLC quests/enemies?

Pete Hines: No, probably not, and that wasn't the intention. The intention was to remove the level cap so that if you have Broken Steel, regardless of whether you want to play that quest or not, or you want to start a new game from scratch, you can continue playing beyond level 20. Again, fans wanted to be able to take their characters to higher levels, so we included it. But it is not specific to the length of Broken Steel, at all. It is a very long climb to get from 20 to 30 and you'll need to do a LOT to get there.


SPOnG: Are there any plans to expand the Fallout series beyond the games, as you're doing with Elder Scrolls and the novels spinning out of it?

Pete Hines: We're always willing to consider it but it just depends on the game and whether the idea is a good fit.


SPOnG: I'm fighting back the urge to ask a bunch of questions about New Vegas, but I'll just ask - when will we see more of it?

Pete Hines: Well you haven't seen any of it, so "more" is a bit misleading, but I can't tell you how long it'll be until we're ready to talk about what we're up to with Obsidian.


SPOnG: Bethesda seems to be making a bigger push with its third party titles than it has in the past. Why is that happening now?

Pete Hines: It isn't something you just say "....NOW!" and boom you have a bigger emphasis on third party titles. Games take a while to develop. It can take time to find the right projects you want to work on, and people you want to work with. "Now" just happens to be when you're starting to hear about them, but we have a number of other third party things in the works we haven't talked about yet, so stay tuned.


SPOnG: What plans do you have for Wet DLC? Any chance we'll see multiplayer content offered at a later date?

Pete Hines: The focus for Wet right now is on the game itself and getting that done, and done right. No, no plans to ever offer multiplayer. It's a single-player game.


SPOnG: You've talked about not wanting to market Wet as a tits and ass game, but Rubi's quite a sexually-provocative character. Are you concerned that the elements of the game you want to promote will be lost behind her?

Pete Hines: I don't think so. Whether or not she's attractive isn't what determines whether it's a T&A game or not. It has more to do with how she is treated as a character. She doesn't wear ridiculous outfits and the one she does wear could hardly be called "revealing". The game isn't about her sexuality, it's about the fact that she's pretty much a bad ass and can (and will) do a lot of cool stuff to get the job done.


SPOnG: When you moved Rogue Warrior to Rebellion, was any of the Zombie build of the game passed along, or did Rebellion start again from scratch?

Pete Hines: It's Rebellion's game from the ground up.


SPOnG: Does Bethesda have the option to do more games based on Dick Marcinko?

Pete Hines: Yes.


SPOnG: What's going on with The Elder Scrolls Travels: Oblivion? Will the game still be released and can you say when?

Pete Hines: Sorry, no new info for you on that.


SPOnG: Finally - no Fallout MMO - ever?

Pete Hines: I have no idea. We'll have to see what happens.