Brb gotta go clean up the puddle of urine :D

I just pray to god that the game will be good.

200 endings! That could go from inter-dimensional aliens saving humanity from super mutated polar bears, to earth turning into pudding!

Ooooh c'mon! I'm not gonna beat it 200 times!

Holy. Shit.

I hope they execute it well, though. The problem I usually have with these multiple ending games is that usually seeing even a portion of them is sort of tedious.

200...endings? all of them unique?

whoa.

Wow, you seriously could play this game forever, although, no doubt three days after release, each ending will be plastered all over the internet. I cannot wait...

How about just a handful of good ones?

After Bioshock, I'd be happy with just 1 good ending in each game.

Are they going by the Way of the Samurai definition of ending where at any point you can leave the town and end the game?

Brilliant. Now the real question is... How long until every ending is available for viewing on YouTube?

200 endings!?! come on u can add 2000 more...

Ummmm...Please get this game to me now.

There's no way I'm buying this. I like living without an addiction.

I'm guessing he's talking about 200 permutations of the ending. I doubt there are 200 completely unique endings, but rather a much smaller subset of different things that can happen in the ending, depending on what you did during the game.

Oh my God! this is the craziest and one of the scariest thing i have heard for a game. I mean 200 endings for a single game i bet it will take 2 or maybe 3 bluray to fit that in. More than 60 hours of gameplay, that is mad, hope the gameplay and missions pay off. But this is crazy, i will play it for maybe 3 years before i see a hundred endings. The game looks great from the trailer, they are giving good info, i bet it will wonderful, can't wait for the game

I just hope these are different endings, not 10 different ones just with a bunch of tweaks. Though even 10 completely different endings would already be pretty badass.

Nice, finally we are in the next gen of gaming.

@Witzbold: As do I. I like Both Fallout and the Elderscrolls so either way I'm sure I will love this game.

Score one for replay value! And actually replaying the game 199 times over again!

@shagari7: Ya God Damn Right! 14 disc game with a 4 hour install, here I come!

I'm pretty sure he is exaggerating. I always say "This weighs a thousand pounds" but it is probably closer to 20 and I am a lazy P.O.S.

200 endings, and 80 hours of gameplay in an open-ended RPG? Didn't people promise shit like this for Mass Effect and Oblivion? Aren't we tired of overblown promises like these yet?

Oh, wait, it's Fallout, so no. People are just going to sit back and accept it, then make excuses for the game when it launches and 198 of those 200 endings are text-only or lacking in any real purpose...or when they realize the game's really only 30 hours long, with 50 hours of sidequest padding. After Oblivion and its "unlimited replay value" ended up being total BS, I'm going to err on the side of caution for this one...then again, I was never exactly hyped for it ever since the first Oblivion With Guns screenshots.

Don't those endings include ways to die too? Those deaths are endings as well.

@darthmole12: I'm thinking that these 200 endings could be a result of variations to the "12 endings" mentioned before, and then variations of those variations.

Somehow I doubt Bethesda wouldn't say "200 endings" for nothing. That would only make the Fallout extremists very very angry.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan, but I'd be happy with 12 endings and 40 hours of gameplay if the quality was along the lines of something like KOTOR. (And stayed true to the canon, of course)

Well, if you define "ending" really loosely, I can see how this or any other game could have 200+ endings.

Ending 1: Killed by gang in Vault 101.
Ending 2: Killed by Mutant.
Ending 3: Killed by Brotherhood of Steel member.

...And so on. I wonder if the Xbox 360 version will mark each instance as an achievement?

wow. the fact that i'm 460 hours into oblivion and i'm not even close to beating the main storyline says that if i get this game, i'll never finish it. let alone get 10% of the endings.

sounds awesome though. i'm game to take on this monstrous task.

Ooh, what a bitch Achievement that would be . . . Unlock All 200 Endings. And to make matters worse, they would only make it worth 20 points. What a bitch slap to perfectionists and completists.

Well, you know what they say: Gotta catch 'em all!

meh, 200 different endings could be only 12 proper endings and then loads of slight variations. Alternatively they could be endings that happen half way through the game forcing you to start from the begginning again, aka STALKER.

Still going to buy it :p

They're not going to be unique. I'll bet you a million there's going to be 12-19 actual endings and the rest are rehashes with minor differences. Still excited.

:O ! 200! Thats like, 10x as many as it should have. I always thought 10+ endings was pushing it (unless they work like Chrono Trigger endings).

How many Chrono Trigger endings are there, though?
(# of cats, for example)

Well **** there goes my life.

Again.

Only 400 Microsoft Points per ending!

This doesn't sound feasible at all, unless it's a sprite change here or a line of dialogue there.

Still excited though. wooh.

@Archaotic: Total BS? I'm guessing you just ran through the main story and didn't bother doing anything else. Sidequests, when done right, make a game feel alive and many of Oblivions sidequests did that.

Mew. I hate multiple endings to be honest - because I usually CBA to play through the game, especially a big time intense RPG, a second or third time. When I kinda know the story and all. Wears off a little.

Now imagine playing through a 200th time just to have seen all the endings.

Even watching all of the 200 cutscenes would probably take like 6 hours. Playing to that point every time? Goddamn. GOD DAMN. That's just cruel. Brain, stop calculating! You don't wanna know! ;P

That's too many and a high percentage of them will probably be worthless. My favorite game is Chrono Trigger and I didn't even feel the drive to get all the endings for that. Wouldn't you HAVE to look at a FAQ to get all those endings anyway? I wonder if these are all well directed endings or just differences in scenes where they show the important NPC you didn't kill or not show it because you did kill him or her.

Am i the only one that thinks this is far too much? Unless, like Surplus said, it goes way of the samurai and by just leaving the town counts as an ending, i do believe this is far too many. maybe 10. 40 different endings even. But 200!?

There's no way! 200? Is that really fair to OCD completionists?

Bethesda their blood is on your hands!

*excited grin*

@Archaotic:
All the endings won't be unique, but I'm sure there will be about 12 unique endings. And I disagree with you on the Oblivion issue. To me, it really does have near infinite replay value. I've played for 120 hours now, and I'm only barely getting started. I've done virtually no sidequests, and I haven't even been to the Shivering Isles. I remember one guy played 700 hours on one file, and most people on the forums have created multiple characters. Besides, Elder Scrolls games are never about the main storyline anyway.

it's not ikely to be 200 completely different endings, there are probably a dozen or so basic patterns and some of the details are affected by in game events (if character X dies, character Y says something different than if they lived etc).

Personally, while it's nice that my actions can affect the outcome of the story a game tells, there's only so much of that I can cope with. Each playthrough of the game is likely to be broadly similar with a few key decisions differing but basically the same areas and objectives (unless it's a super branching setup where each playthrough only reveals a small proportion of the gameworld); I don't want to be forced to do that dozens of times to get to see all the possible endings. Chrono trigger had the right idea, you could use a single new game + playthrough to reveal a bunch of different endings by going to Lavos at a given point, but the game didn't save and reset after you beat it, so you could carry on from that point and get the next ending.

I would imagine they have bits and pieces that mix together to create 200 possible endings.

Also, fucking awesome.

I think I need to ask gstaff to wait on giving me a copy..I can't play 200 endings..wow..just wow.

Yeah, it's gotta be just permutations on a few different elements. If each ending were unique, that would take up like half the disc!

It's reasonably easy to get to over 200 endings this way...imagine there are 5 major ending plot points each of which can end up in one of three ways in any combination:

3 X 3 X 3 X 3 X 3 = 243

So it may not be worthy it to explore every combo...just each of the three values of each plot point, in this instance.

Dammit, I want an Edit Button! But ya, Archaotic. Of course, that's how I feel regarding things and I enjoy going through things and finding all the hidden shit. Remembering our last talk you're not that type of player XP.

@SynKade:
I love when completests are bitch slapped. Hitting them with an impossible task is the only way to cure their insane behavior. Or it will kill them. Either way, it's fine with me.

@GettinMyGooseOn:

...and I just thought of the fact that you could technically apply this formula to Mass Effect and make a similar argument. Which has a similar 4 or 5 variable in any combination ending sequence. So we already have a game with a huge score of endings.

@jfx316: what could you possibly be doing in that game thats taken you 400+ hours and not beaten the main story arc?

@SynKade:
When I play an RPG, I play it for the story first and foremost. Helping generic civilians who all have the same voice actor and same face, as well as zero plot importance, started to wear me down after the third or fourth hour of play, and it made me lose interest in the game.

That being said, Shivering Isles was a lot more intriguing because of Sheogorath's complex character, witty dialogue, and the general creativity of the quests in the Realm of Madness. But regular Cyrodiil was so boring it killed the vanilla game for me.

@Archaotic:
You're a weird player, but I do sort of like your style. People who force themselves to get every materia or other stupid thing confuse me. I've got nothing against getting 100% on a game if it's fun to do, or not insane. I got 100% on San Andreas, which most people thought was crazy, but I loved it. With Oblivion, I think I was just good at infusing characters with personality myself. They weren't that fleshed out, but I thought it was enough.

If this is done right I think I might not need to buy another game for a little while.

I just cannot fathom how one could write 200 endings for ANYTHING. There must be like 12 endings, with another 188 subtle differences.
Man, I hope this game is at least as good as Mass Effect. (sans load issues)
If they can pull that off, it'll be a worthy successor to the Fallout Lineage.

Arrgh i want to see some footage so bad

200 endings or 20 endings with several minor variations?

I'm getting the impression most of you have not beaten the original Fallouts. It sounds like Todd is going to do the same thing with three that was done in the first two. Each minor/major story event had two or so different outcomes, and what you did changed the ending. Classic example would be Killian and Gizmo in Junktown. If you helped Killian, the stern Sheriff to take out Gizmo, you got an ending telling you that Junktown was lawful, but no longer prosperous. If you took out Killian, you got that part of the ending telling you that under Gizmo, Junktown grew even though it was corrupt.

@SynKade:
@TheEngineer: Kirbytheslayer is awesome.:
Well, I love finding hidden stuff, but the thing about it is that the sidequests in games like Oblivion, Two Worlds, Mass Effect, Fable, and now Fallout aren't hidden. The game basically makes you do them if you want to get any meat out of your experience.

It's not like in a game like Final Fantasy VI or Lost Odyssey where the sidequests augment the experience. In open-ended RPGs, the throwaway sidequests that would be padding at the end of a plot-driven RPG become the experience. And I can't agree with that from a game design standpoint, as without a good story backbone, there's no POINT in helping Joe McTownie find his wife's lost ring or helping Patricia Villagette snoop on her neighbors to see if they're having an affair.

And Syn, I don't mean to single you out there, as you mentioned earlier we do generally just have different tastes and I mean no disrespect.

Here's the thing - they said 200 endings, but they didn't say 200 good endings. The problem isn't the quantity, it's the quality. Does a different ending mean that in the same block of text that describes the epilogue, "xyz town you visited early on was saved" instead of "was destroyed"? Or are we talking about 200 real, substantive endings?

Star Ocean 2 had '88' endings I believe but in actuality, it was a much more smaller number with small differences, this is what I expect with Fallout 3

200? That's like 190 too many. I hope they're just trying to show off and it's actually 10 or so endings with a differing final screen or something. That, or it'll become one of few games where I don't try to see all the endings.

@TheEngineer: Kirbytheslayer is awesome.:
I see where you're coming from there too, man. I can be a bit of a completionist if the mood strikes me, like in a game like Chrono Trigger where I've beaten the game so many times on the same save file that I have 17 Rainbow Swords in my inventory. In the Suikoden games, I never finish without making sure I've recruited all 108 of the Stars. And with my save on Disc 4 of Lost Odyssey, I fully plan to take advantage of every single thing the game has to offer. But I enjoyed those games' storylines and characters so much that grinding, and doing random sidequests wasn't a problem. It was expanding my experience and making my purchase even more valid.

But then I pick up a game like Mass Effect that has a 15-hour main storyline and characters who hardly develop at all (hell, look at Tali! Did she really contribute anything?), and those same sidequests that in a Suikoden or a Final Fantasy would be cool end up becoming busy work, stretching out an experience that should've had more meat on it to begin with. It feels cheap and unfinished to me, and as a writer with his hands in game design, it hurts even more.