Fallout 3's lead artist says its 'sparse' vision of post-apocalypse is 'messy, and there's lots of inconsistency—but I like that, because it mimics the real world'

The latest issue of Edge magazine features an article on the making of Fallout 3, including interviews with some of Bethesda's key creatives tasked with bringing the classic isometric series into 3D. Fallout itself "was a big pivot" for a studio best-known for the fantasy world of the Elder Scrolls, says lead artist Istvan Pely, and meant the studio "had to prove that we could pull off a totally different genre, the opposite of fantasy."

Pely was responsible for much of the game's look, and he began by going back to the source.