Fallout 3 Interview

The Guardian interviews Bethesda's Todd Howard about Fallout 3 and building a post-apocalyptic world.
In what ways do you feel you've captured the minutiae of survival in a post-apocalyptic landscape - will the player have to search for food/shelter in the game?
I think it's the minutiae of the Fallout world. Say you are hurt in the game, and you come across a destroyed grocery store, and inside you find an old vending machine with some Nuka-Cola, you can drink the cola to heal yourself, but then the bottle cap also acts as the game's money. So you heal a bit and get a "cap" that you can use to trade. Just that tiny event is grounded in the reality of the world you're in.

Who are the game's enemies? How have you sought to create a sense of society in the game - are their roving bands of survivors/mutants? How do they behave and why?
Many types, from the Raiders I mentioned, to the Super Mutants, to just general mutated beasts like two-headed cows, or rampaging mutated bears. For each, we give them an agenda, and have that drive their goals, as well as their set-dressings. Often in the game we have setups like a destroyed café that you enter and you can tell the raiders have been there, that it is a camp of some kind, but they are out hunting, and then they return as you are inspecting it. It's a great moment that, like the others, feels alive and scary.