Van Buren is the codename Black Isle Studios assigned to their second iteration of Fallout 3. It saw development by Black Isle Studios until its cancelation in December 8, 2003 and would have been published by Interplay Entertainment.
It takes place in the United States of America during the Great War. The player character in the demo is referred to only as Citizen, though they share a model with the Prisoner. The Citizen made their way to the relocation center and was escorted to Vault 1 by Corporal Armstrong of the 4th or 13th Armored Infantry Division. To reach the vault, they must fight communist insurgents. After they enter the vault, they must help turn on the life support system.
The URL I linked with this post is to the ModDB page. It’s an interesting novelty.
A lot of elements from Van Buren would go on to appear in Fallout New Vegas.
Multiple mods have attempted to recreate what could have been using the leaked design documents and interviews for inspiration.
Given the size of the fanbase, I’ve always been shocked nobody has completed (I know there have been at least a few attempts) a riff on Van Buren. The modern Wasteland games are made on Unity, and show a high end of what it could be like.
Given the size of the fanbase, I’ve always been shocked nobody has completed (I know there have been at least a few attempts) a riff on Van Buren.
I think it might be a similar situation to the mods that attempt recreate the isometric games in 3D; there’s a lot of blanks that still need to be filled in. There also seems to be some indecisiveness with how it should be done. I think Fallout Yesterday went from the FOnline engine to the FO2 engine.
The modern Wasteland games are made on Unity, and show a high end of what it could be like.
There’s actually a project to recreate Van Buren in Unity as well.
I do wish I could get more into the Wasteland series but I struggle with the squad based mechanics. The lore seems pretty interesting.
a project to recreate Van Buren in Unity as well
I’m following, just not getting my hopes up until I’m allowed to play it.
I do wish I could get more into the Wasteland series but I struggle with the squad based mechanics
It is an adjustment, which does leave me wanting a Fallout game to wander the wasteland alone. If you could possibly get into it, I think Wasteland 3 is a perfectly acceptable starting point, the combat is the most polished. Wasteland 3 leans heavily into faction dynamics which is reminiscent of Fallout New Vegas type choices.
I’m following, just not getting my hopes up until I’m allowed to play it.
Yeah. Some of them do have demos of their own but I feel like they are going to get into the situation where they get 80% of the way there and the last 20% takes forever to finish.
I feel like at least with the isometric recreations there will be less feature creep.
You don’t need to play the other Wasteland games to play 3? I don’t imagine you need to play the original DOS game but I figured I would probably need to play 2.
WL3 explains the broad stokes in the intro, you’re part of self appointed wasteland cops in Arizona and supplies in the region are running low. The game takes place in Colorado, which is totally new for the franchise, so you go in blind either way. There’s a few connections, and mainly one character brought back which might mean more if you played the second game, but you won’t be confused plotwise.
I find WL3 to be more focused than WL2, the playable area is smaller and it isn’t split into two distinct regions as in WL2, which made it somewhat dragged out at the very end. WL3 instead is mostly in a pretty compact area, having to deal with faction disputes and digging deeper into places.
From what I can tell, this is the most finished and still active attempt.
Last update from them was December 18th here: https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/project-van-buren.216092/
I’m following it and super hopeful it becomes a full playable proejct to download some day. I’m just not investing my hopes into it too early.
I think Fallout Yesterday might rival it. They mentioned getting some additional information regarding the plot from Chris Avellone in the NMA forum post and they released an update this month as well.
