Lead designer on Fallout 3, Todd Howard, was recently interviewed on episode 107 of the Official Xbox Magazine podcast. He seized the opportunity to casually reveal the 200-plus possible ending of Bethesda’s fall title, Fallout 3. Howard claimed that the game was “easily 100 hours,” and that throughout the duration of the game, “decisions the player makes will impact the storyline, and lead to over 200 different endings.”
It remains to be seen whether the variety among the endings is large or slight variations, but Howard reassured the OXM podcast that “this figure is no exaggeration.”
This bar-raising feature could make critics second-guess the heaps of praise piled on a game with two different endings, and redefine the standard for which “multiple endings” exist in games.
Todd mentioned that and I thought “Well, how varying? Do 200 endings constitute of 100 at sun up, 100 at sun down?”
Meanwhile, those hundred might be different in the person you’re standing beside at the end. Or perhaps how many people are alive around you… Little things like that. I’m not expecting world-shaking ending differences, but it’d be cool.