Fallout 4’s First Asset Was Power Armor

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine the scope of a game’s development process, especially for games as expansive as Bethesda’s. Where does a game begin? Fallout 3 was born with the creation of the Power Armor, its first asset, reveals lead artist Istvan Pely to GameInformer. “It’s the iconic image. It’s on the cover of the box,” Pely explains. “That sort of represents Fallout for us.” For Fallout 4, the team wanted to update that image but retain its iconic quality.

The T-60 in Fallout 4 is an improvement to Fallout 3’s T-45. It’s bigger and heavier, and “authentic in the power armor sense,” says Pely. While the T-45 still looks somewhat like a person, the T-60 is closer in appearance to a walking tank.

Surprising as it may be, Pely created the original art for the T-60 in 2009 after Fallout 3’s DLC completed. The same design is present in Fallout 4, seven years later, although there were a few updates along the way – and updates were unavoidable considering how much consoles have changed over the last decade.

The long-awaited Fallout 4 will be available for PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 10. Now’s the time to get your hands on some of the wild collectible merchandise floating around.