Team Folon, the volunteer development team behind the ambitious Fallout 4 mod Fallout London, is ready to launch itself as a new independent studio.
Speaking to the BBC (via PCGN), Folon project manager Dean Carter admitted that “as much as I like the fact that this is a free project, that we can offer it to the whole community for free, it's not enough to pay the bills.”
“What was great for us was that a lot of people had a lot of fun. [Fallout London] They made a donation to us and we're channeling it into Team Folon, which is what we're dedicated to,” Carter said.
“We hope to launch our own indie game company that will allow us to come up with our own ideas, create our own games, and work […] without having to talk to anyone above us, like Bethesda or anything like that.
“It's going to be our own thing and we can make a game that we want, that we think the community will enjoy. Fallout London was a fantastic launching pad for that.”
And what does the future hold for Fallout London?
“Fallout London will continue until we have all the content that we had to cut for release. We have another ending, which we call the wildcard ending, that will come out in a future patch. It's not going to happen anytime soon; we can see ourselves working on it until the end of the year.
“We have no ulterior motives. We wanted to do something that was fun. [during lockdown]we created something funny and people found it funny, so for us we achieved our goal and we are very happy with the result and the reception.”
When asked if Bethesda had reached out to Team Folon after all the positive coverage of Fallout London, Carter simply said, “Um, no. No, we haven’t.”
“There was no communication, which is strange, because now we have been communicating with other people in the industry and with what I imagine would be seen as their competitors. they have They reached out to us and we talked to them, but Bethesda themselves didn't talk to us at all, no.”
He added, however, that since this is a fan-made mod based entirely on Bethesda's intellectual property, Team Folon in no way feels it has any “right” to an audience with Bethesda.
A hotfix for Fallout: London to address crashing issues is still on the way, and developer Team Folon is planning a “massive” patch to release soon after.
The fan-made mod for Fallout 4 set in the English capital was released in late July, but players have encountered a number of crashes and issues, including Eurogamer's Ian Higton when he streamed his gameplay.
Meanwhile, Team Folon promised that a solution would be coming, and in a new statement on their Discord, they reiterated their plans for the future.