Fears of Bethesda legal action prompts cancellation of Fallout 3 remake
Capital Wasteland scrapped as modders seek to maintain a good relationship with Elder Scrolls publisher
A group of developers attempting to rebuild Fallout 3 in the same engine as 2015's Fallout 4 has stopped all work on the project.
The team, known as Road to Liberty, announced the cancellation of Capital Wasteland via Twitter, later explaining that the decision was made in order to avoid legal repercussions from Bethesda.
Project lead Nathan, also known as NafNaf_95, issued a statement that has been shared via Twitter indicating that the project was in danger of infringing on Bethesda's rights - specifically around the audio.
"Recently we have communicated with Bethesda regarding our planned method to implement the voice acting and other audio from Fallout 3 into the Capital Wasteland," he wrote. "During this conversation it became clear our planned approach would raise some serious red flags that we had unfortunately not foreseen. This contact resulted in us changing our methods to attempt to continue working."
He went on say that he as a project lead would be most liable for piracy and copyright infringement if Capital Wasteland was ever finished and released. He said the Road to Liberty team "value our connections with many members of the amazing dev team that is Bethesda Game Studios" and "do not wish to strain the working relationships" with the firm.
There appears to have been no actual threat of legal action from Bethesda, and Nathan said work would resume if Bethesda and parent Zenimax ever gave the project its blessing.