Usually, I’m deeply annoyed when billion-dollar corporations wield the “talk to our legal department” stick to crush modders with zero budget who are just trying to express their creativity. But this time, I feel it’s justified: Bethesda issued a cease-and-desist order to an “AI creator” who made a Fallout fan game set in New York that runs directly in a browser.
That’s actually giving it too much credit: As Chris Forster explained in a post on X (via RPS), he simply “directed Claude and an entire studio of AI agents” to make the game for him. Forster also stated that no new creativity was injected into the process at all; he demanded that the game be “not inspired by Fallout,” but rather “exactly like Fallout.”
And that’s how the final product came to be.
I know running in a browser is a limitation in itself, but the quality of this game is so poor that I have absolutely no interest in touching it. It stands in stark contrast to mods like Fallout: London and Oblivion Lost—works that poured in the creators’ genuine passion, effort, and creativity. Admittedly, these large-scale mod projects are massive undertakings requiring hundreds of volunteers spending years polishing them, but at least they deliver quality, and I think there might be something worth reflecting on here.
Regardless, whether I want to play it or not is now irrelevant, as Forster announced yesterday that he received a notice from ZeniMax Media demanding he halt the project—specifically, the domain name fallout.nyc he registered for the project infringes on the studio’s intellectual property.
I don’t know if Forster was expecting sympathy for his plight, but it seems few people are buying it. Some criticized him for naming the project “Fallout” outright, clearly provoking Bethesda to take action; many others slammed his use of AI to make the game. A few optimists thought that simply changing the name would solve the issue, but Forster doesn’t seem inclined to do so.
Perhaps that’s for the best: Maybe I’m being too harsh (though I don’t think so), but there’s an obvious problem with the renaming proposal—changing the name doesn’t change the fact that it’s shoddily made. Playing a low-poly Fallout in a browser isn’t some impressive technical achievement—The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind could do the same thing, and at least it managed to recreate the look of Morrowind. If you just want to play a cheap version of Fallout, Fallout 3 is only $2.49 in the Steam Autumn Sale, and you can pick up Fallout: New Vegas for five bucks.
I can understand Forster’s desire for a proper new Fallout: I’m getting a bit tired of the gameplay loop myself, and it’s been 11 years since Fallout 4 launched—that’s way too long. But as the young people say, this thing is not it at all. Although I will never stand up and cheer for corporations, I don’t feel the slightest pity watching this project get swept into history’s trash bin—where it truly belongs.