Fallout 3 Interview

PlayStation Universe conducted an interview with Pete Hines, opened with the odd statement "From the creators who brought you The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion comes one of the best post-apocalyptic role-playing games ever - Fallout 3."
PSU: The art direction in Fallout 3 definitely succeeds in capturing the visual spirit of its predecessors. How did Bethesda initially capture these visuals and place them into a next-gen 3D world? Were there any compromises made in terms of what to add or how expansive the world could be? In addition, was there anything Bethesda thinks it did differently than any previous titles in terms of the current world's visual layout?

Obviously we spent a lot of time looking at the games themselves, but also the concept art for those games. We have a lot of the original materials from the first two games so we can look at not only how they looked in the original games, but also what the developers were going for when they came up with the idea. We spent a ton of time churning out a lot of concept art and going through multiple iterations to get the look and feel of things right. That includes all of the iconic elements from the series the PipBoy, Vault Suit, and so on to little things like the chairs and computers that appeared in the Vault in the first game.