Interplay stays afloat, wants Fallout Online

Interplay is a company that I have a history with. It was afterall games like Fallout which shifted me from my casual Monkey Island-loving ways to being a more hardcore gamer with a penchant for low-tech RPGs. I was obviously pretty devastated then when the company was on the verge of closing permanently in 2001, with a total debt of $59 million.

Now though, things are looking up. Interplay has recently announced that it has reduced that debt from $59 million to only $3 million, thanks mainly to the sale of the Fallout license to Bethesda Softworks.

And that's not all.

Interplay has also announced that it is now looking forwards to raising money for a new project. Specifically, the Fallout MMO which Interplay has retained the rights to.

"With that difficult period behind us, we are focused on securing funding for development of a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) based on the popular Fallout franchise. Along with our strategy of leveraging our existing portfolio of intellectual gaming properties, Fallout Online will play a key role in the future of Interplay." Said Interplay CEO, Herve Caen.

Fallout is a series which Interplay has obviously always wanted to continue with, as the Van Buren technical demo (which is the leftover pieces of the cancelled Interplay version of Fallout 3) proves.

Of course, it's still very early days but even the idea of a Fallout MMO is enough to get us all excited and tingly.

Are you excited too, or do you think that Bethesda is a more promising steward for the Fallout franchise? Let us know in the forums!