Fallout and Elder Scrolls writer Emil Pagliarulo has explained the difference in writing between the two series and why Fallout may be a bit harder to deal with.

In dense RPGs like Bethesda's Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, there are a ton of decisions to be made, and in cases like the Obsidian-published Fallout: New Vegas, there are a ton of potential outcomes and different factions vying for you to help them out, and it's never exactly clear who is the right choice to side with for the good of humanity (well, maybe not Caesar's Legion that one's pretty obvious).

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Pagliarulo explains, "I think it's easier in a fantasy game like The Elder Scrolls, where a lot of fantasy tropes are 'there's a big bad evil.'" He adds, "the differentiation between good and evil is pretty distinct sometimes." But with the likes of Fallout, Paglarulo notes "there are a lot of shades of gray".

Paglarulo, saying, "I think in Fallout 4, especially with the Brotherhood and Institute, no matter what they do, you have to sit back and go 'maybe they have a point'." He elaborates, for the Institute "Are the synths just really toasters? Are they just machines? We created them, do they deserve to have freedom?" While "The Brotherhood is a bunch of hard asses, but does humanity really deserve to be in control of this technology that they are clearly not using responsibly?"

Although those questions are perhaps what makes Fallout such an engaging series, I say as I start up my fifth New Vegas playthrough.

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Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive have been enjoying a record-breaking awards run with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - which recently took home more trophies than any other title in The Game Awards history - but at least two of its awards elsewhere have been revoked.

The Indie Game Awards 2025 took place on Thursday, where Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won both Game of the Year and Debut Game. Both awards were already a little controversial since Clair Obscur isn't exactly what you think of when you think indie - it has a publisher and a budget stretching into the millions of dollars.

But just yesterday, The Indie Game Awards retracted both awards, explaining that the studio's use of generative AI during production goes against the organization's rules and a developer representative hadn't been entirely honest about that fact before submitting the game, per its FAQ page.

"The Indie Game Awards have a hard stance on the use of gen AI throughout the nomination process and during the ceremony itself," the awards body wrote. "When it was submitted for consideration, a representative of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In light of Sandfall Interactive confirming the use of gen AI art in production on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination."

For those out of the loop, Clair Obscur launched with what seemed to be AI-generated textures in at least one area. When the odd texture was spotted and circulated online, Sandfall quietly patched it out and replaced it without a word.

"While the assets in question were patched out and it is a wonderful game, it does go against the regulations we have in place. As a result, the IGAs nomination committee has agreed to officially retract both the Debut Game and Game of the Year awards."

Instead, the organization's Game of the Year award has gone to the equally-deserving Blue Prince, while Debut Game is in Sorry We're Closed's hands.

"We love making games more than we love managing": Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 lead says "it's good to have limitations," so the RPG studio won't "scale up" for any future projects

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding maestro Hideo Kojima, known for his grand and filmic blockbusters, was sucked into the game industry by an unexpected classic: Super Mario Bros.

The four-decade-old platformer isn't the most obvious influence on Hideo Kojima's work when you look at the type of games he's put out for generations, but it's the one that led to him becoming a developer in the first place.

"[I] played it for a year. I was a college student. I skipped school to play at home," Kojima told Wired Japan. "Without Super Mario, I probably wouldn't have been in this industry. Yeah. I can't really play it now, though. It's a side-scrolling action game. Mario just goes left to right. Basically just jumping."

The auteur game creator noted that the first Super Mario "had almost no story" aside from saving a damsel in distress princess from an evil monster, but it didn't matter much. "It felt like you were on an adventure," Kojima continued. "When I saw that, although it was pixel art with no story, I felt this medium would one day surpass movies. That conviction brought me to the game industry."

Elsewhere in the chat, Kojima cited Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa as film directors who influenced him greatly, but none more than John Carpenter. "He defied genre," Kojima said of The Thing and Halloween director.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is "often mistaken for a story about AI," Hideo Kojima says, but it's actually about "what human life would become" in the digital age