14 DAY TRIAL // The Duck and Cover fan site is reporting that the long running legal battle between video game companies Bethesda and Interplay over the rights to the Fallout series has been finally settled, although the two companies have not yet made the decision public.
A court date for the lawsuit was set to take place during the final days of last year and immediately after the trial started the judge ordered a recess and then prolonged it all through the lunch period, then closing the courtroom to everyone but the lawyers and the representatives of the two sides.
A source then claimed that a settlement deal was in the works, which apparently was confirmed the net day when another separate source close to the court reporters confirmed that no new date for the trial had been set.
Bethesda and Interplay are set to offer details on the settlement before the end of the months.
During the last few years Bethesda has managed to deliver two very big hits based on the Fallout franchise, the full third game in the franchise and the New Vegas parallel story that was created by Obsidian.
The company has also launched a string of downloadable content and another game based on the same engine might get an announcement soon.
Meanwhile Interplay was set to work on a MMO based upon the Fallout franchise but it has failed to meet a number of development milestones, which prompted Bethesda to try and get full control over the franchise.
It’s not clear the new settlement might mean that Bethesda is now working with Interplay in order to deliver the long delayed Wasteland based MMO or whether it has bought the entire project outright.
Fallout Online could be one of the big hits of the genre in the coming years as long as it managed to deliver a sense of the complex post apocalyptic world and some solid MMO mechanics.