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Story telling in games has become a priority these days. How influential is the story line to the game itself?

It's very important. It's a very compelling and interesting story that takes you to a lot of different locations and introduces you to a lot of different creatures and there are some great plot moments. It plays a lot larger role in the game than the previous games where the main quest is only a small fraction of the story, whereas with Fallout 3 it plays a much more central role, it's a much bigger part of there is to do in the world and a lot of people will feel compelled to follow the story through. But again, it's up to the player. You could walk out of the vault and spend 50 hours playing the game never touching the main quest, so really, it's a player driven experience.


Talk to us about 'Karma' and how it effects the game and whether it has a bearing on the story or the ending of the game?

What we wanted to do was let the player explore different situations and make the choice of how they want to solve quests. The game also tracks how good, evil or neutral you are and how that effects things like having a companion in the world. The kind of companion you can have is based on your karma and their karma, so if they're different, they won't be willing to come with you. You also have factions in the world, the good guys and the bad guys. If you're the opposite, then they'll send out guys to kill you. So if you are evil in the world, at some point the good guys might try to send out someone to kill you because you are causing problems for them. So really it manifests itself on what happens on an individual basis, what kind of people are willing to help you and whether or not you'll have to suffer the consequences.


So how are you recognised as a good or bad person? Is it a physical attribute, or is it more of an AI thing?

That's really an AI thing. There is no guard system, there is no police system, basically you alert the opposing team when you kill someone or steal something. There is a wasteland justice, where people band together, groups band together to protect one another. So in the case you take out an innocent person or steal their stuff, word of that spreads and suddenly you may find yourself facing a number of armed villagers who are ready to take you out because of what you've done.


You mentioned earlier that you'll be able to acquire a companion. Does this mean we can expect to see a multiplayer or co-op game too?

No, this is a single player game only, so there is no co-op and no multiplayer. We felt it was important to focus on that experience, an experience where you as a player get to influence everything that's going on in the world. Anything else that we'd add to that would detract from the single player experience.


Is there any real-time time ratio. So what's the timescale, what's 24 hours?

I don't know exactly how long it is, but the 24 hour cycle is around the 40 minutes mark, if I had to guess, because I am! There is a dynamic day-night cycle and there is a dynamic weather conditions. And people do move around in this schedule. So if you go to a town at 3am, there won't be anyone at the shops, you'll have to wait till morning.