Bethesda Sues Interplay Over Fallout MMO

Bethesda has made good on their threat to sue Interplay. They've filed a lawsuit that accuses Interplay of infringing upon their Fallout trademark.

Interplay, the publisher of the first two Fallout games, sold the license away to Bethesda a few years back but retained the specific rights to create an MMORPG based on the franchise. The agreement between the two companies apparently stated that Interplay would begin full-scale development of the MMORPG (dubbed "Project V13" by Interplay) by April 2009 or that the MMO rights would revert to Bethesda. The lawsuit alleges that Interplay failed to meet this deadline and that the company has therefore violated the agreement.

The filing, spotted by Fallout fansite No Mutants Allowed, can be found here. It's an official Maryland District Court database, though, so to view anything beyond the basic facts you'll need to be a "subscriber to the PACER system." We are definitely not...whatever that is.

None of this necessarily means that Bethesda has an immediate desire to make a Fallout MMO of their own. No doubt they'd love the option to do so, though. Furthermore, if Interplay did complete a Fallout MMO and it ended up being sub-par, its failure could tarnish the brand in general and perhaps hurt the sales of Bethesda's single-player Fallout games. You could argue the reverse scenario as well - a successful Interplay Fallout MMO might draw more attention to Bethesda's games - but maybe Bethesda would simply rather be in sole control of the franchise's fate.