Chapter 188: Platformer Plans (bonus)

Ethan had started to wonder if GAMENOVA was slowly turning into a daycare. It hadn't been long since Gokey, who was even a year younger than Carmack, had joined Activision. Now another resume had landed on his desk. 1

Only this time, the resume had come from Ubisoft. 

"Michel Ancel?" 1

Ethan stared at the name for a moment, surprised. Michel Ancel was French, or more precisely, Monegasque. He had only recently returned to France and settled in Montpellier the previous year. 

His connection to Ubisoft had come nearly two years earlier than Ethan remembered. Apparently, GAMENOVA's acquisition of Ubisoft was already having effects far beyond what anyone had expected. 

"Yeah. He's only fifteen, but he's got a real talent for computer animation." 

Bill, who had been handling the transition between the two companies, explained over the phone. 

"The Guillemot brothers were very impressed with his work and want to officially bring him on board at Ubisoft." 

It sounded like the decision had already received broad support within Ubisoft. The reason was simple: Ancel had submitted an impressive piece to a computer animation competition Ubisoft had recently held. 

It depicted Earth slowly turning into a barren desert. Compared with some of the flashier entries, the animation was still rough around the edges. But the Guillemot brothers had immediately noticed the talent behind it. 

After Bill put them in touch with main office, they reached out to Ethan to make sure he was on board with bringing someone that young into Ubisoft, even given his exceptional talent. 

"My opinion? Sure, I don't see a problem with it," Ethan said with a laugh. "It's not like we've never hired someone young before, although, when you put it that way, GAMENOVA is starting to sound more like a summer camp." 

At least this saved him the trouble of having to find Ancel himself. 

Michel Ancel wasn't just some talented kid who happened to work at Ubisoft. His name would eventually become inseparable from one of the company's most recognizable franchises. 

Rayman 2

Ancel would become the lead designer of the Rayman series and the creative force behind its main character. The series' colorful, hand-drawn 2D fairy-tale aesthetic would eventually stand out from the heavily established American and Japanese styles dominating the industry. 

And Ethan saw an opportunity. Looking at GAMENOVA's lineup, the company had already covered a wide range of genres and ideas. There was just one major area Ethan had largely left alone: side-scrolling platformers. 

Nintendo already had Super Mario, Sega's Sonic was on the way. GAMENOVA, meanwhile, didn't really have a major platforming franchise of its own. If Ethan stretched the definition, Castlevania and Contra were probably the closest things in the company's library. 7

"Michel's still pretty young, but that doesn't mean we can't give him some room to grow." 

Ethan thought about it for a moment. 

Rayman would be a perfect fit. It was a 2D platformer, but its visual identity and overall style were completely different from anything Nintendo or Sega were doing. 3

If GAMENOVA could develop something along those lines, it would fill an obvious gap in the company's lineup. 

"For now, let him work with the others. He can pick things up as he goes." 

The Ubisoft run by the Guillemot brothers was nothing like the capital-driven corporate giant it would eventually become. At this point, they were still a group of passionate game developers. 

The brothers practically lived alongside their developers, working and eating together in the castle they had turned into their office. So, for someone like Ancel, it was probably one of the best environments he could have asked for. 

"Got it." 

... 

February arrived. 

EA's latest game finally hit the market. It had been heavily promoted for more than six months, and expectations were already high. The game was a brand-new IP developed by Interplay and published by EA. 

Fallout 

As the name suggests, it was a story about the aftermath of nuclear war. 

After the world's oil reserves were exhausted, tensions between the major powers over the remaining resources escalated into open conflict. What began as a struggle over dwindling resources eventually spiraled into a full-scale nuclear war, bringing human civilization to the brink of destruction. 

The game took place in the wasteland left behind. 

Under normal circumstances, a post-apocalyptic RPG like this probably wouldn't have attracted much attention. But Fallout quickly proved to be anything but ordinary. 

The moment it was released, gaming magazines and PC enthusiasts started talking about it. The reason was surprisingly simple. 

"It actually supports VGA?" 1

That meant that after DOOM, PC gamers finally had another game capable of displaying 256 colors. And Fallout handled graphics in a way that was considerably more flexible than DOOM. 

When the game started, players were presented with a selection screen through the DOS command line. Depending on their hardware, they could choose the appropriate display mode. 

VGA users could take advantage of the full graphical experience. 

Players with older EGA or CGA cards could still run the game without being forced to spend a small fortune upgrading their hardware. 

Naturally, there was a trade-off. Without VGA, the game's 256-color graphics and more advanced rendering effects were replaced with lower-quality versions. 

Anyone who wanted the full experience would still need a proper graphics card, much like DOOM. Still, it was a smart approach. 

Fallout kept its hardware requirements relatively accessible while giving players with newer machines a graphical experience that could compete with DOOM. On top of that, it had another major selling point. It was one of the first PC RPGs to make full use of 256-color graphics, and the result was impressive. 

Fallout sold more than 30,000 copies during its first week alone. Trip was thrilled by the numbers, but he had gotten something else he wanted even more, the 3D rendering tools developed by Bethesda. 

With these tools now under EA's control, the company was finally in a position to seriously accelerate its push to bring its sports lineup into 3D. 

... 

GAMENOVA. 

Ethan stared at the game running on the monitor. 

The screen showed a top-down view of the battlefield. The user interface was primitive by modern standards, but the designers had given nearly everything a consistent, weathered brass and rust appearance. 

Despite the limitations, it looked surprisingly good. At first glance, the gameplay resembled a tactical strategy game built around the kind of turn based system popularized by Fire Emblem. 

But underneath that framework was something much more interesting. The game's core mechanics were built around tabletop style role playing. 

"The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system?" 

Ethan recognized it immediately. 

Aside from the Pip-Boy, the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system would eventually become one of Fallout's most recognizable features. 

And the name was fitting. Each letter represented one of the game's seven primary attributes: 

Strength. 

Perception. 

Endurance. 

Charisma. 

Intelligence. 

Agility. 

Luck. 

How players distributed their points across those attributes could dramatically change how they approached the game. 

Ethan spent some time playing with the system, but the experience still felt very different from the Fallout he remembered. This wasn't quite the Fallout he knew, it was closer to an alternate take on the same basic concept. 

The foundation was still that of a tactical RPG, with its strategic layer firmly at the center. But the Fallout Ethan remembered would come much later. Interplay would eventually crumble under poor management, leaving the franchise's future uncertain until Bethesda acquired the rights. 

And under Bethesda, Fallout would evolve in a radically different direction. 

But even the timeline felt wrong to Ethan. If someone had asked him to name the post-apocalyptic game associated with the 1980s, he would have said Wasteland without hesitation. 

Fallout came later, a spiritual successor of sorts to Wasteland, carrying many of its predecessor's ideas into an entirely new setting. 

"Wait." 

Almost on instinct, he opened the game's developer information, only to pause when his eyes landed on a name he knew all too well. 

"Bethesda?" Ethan blinked, certain he had to be seeing it wrong. "This early?" 2

Right beneath Interplay's name sat the unmistakable Bethesda logo. 

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