InXile Boss Hopes to Use Van Buren Trademark Someday

While no concrete plans are underway for a revival of Van Buren, the codename given to what was to become Fallout 3 before Black Isle Studios closed in 2003, head of inXile Entertainment Brian Fargo has said in an interview with Eurogamer that he hopes to do something with the trademark his company filed in December 2014 for the incomplete Black Isle project.

The reason inXile filed the trademark for Van Buren in the first place was due to a conversation Fargo had with former Black Isle designer Chris Avellone, who currently works at Obsidian Entertainment, developers of Fallout: New Vegas.

"…there were some things, some ideas, that Chris Avellone had for doing something that made the post-apoc – a twist on the whole what-was-being-done that we really loved,” Fargo said. “So we talked about it and we thought why not grab the rights so we can entertain this one of these days.”

Unfortunately, whenever inXile does decide to make something based on the Van Buren trademark, it will not be able to connect it with the Fallout universe in any way, given that Bethesda, which recently announced a sequel to its post-apocalyptic first-person shooter, is the current owner of that IP.

Fargo emphasized that there was nothing currently in development where Van Buren is concerned, given that inXile has plenty of other projects to tend to at the moment. Just last week, inXile launched its third Kickstarter campaign for another franchise it wants to revive, The Bard’s Tale 4, which is close to clearing its $1.2 million goal. Previously, inXile has found success in the crowd-funding platform with Wasteland 2, which was released last year, and Torment: Tides of Numenera received over $4 million on Kickstarter, well above its $900,000 goal.

An official release date has not been announced for Tides of Numenera, but a backer-only sneak peak at the game is coming this summer.

"We have to get to our backers pretty soon, the beta version or Early Access or whatever you want to call it," Fargo said, "and that is coming here late summer. The [final release] date gets determined based upon that."

Source: Eurogamer