We can return to speculating about which game inXile is going to resurrect next. Brian Fargo has confirmed that he has registered both Meantime and Van Buren as trademarks, but told IGN that neither of these ideas are "part of what's up next".

So which long-awaited game are inXile going to produce after Wasteland 2 and Torment? Another installment of the Bard's Tale franchise is a realistic option, as Fargo's 2004 re-boot was more of a satirical take on the genre than a real sequel. Other options I've seen floated are sequels to Arcanum, Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, but inXile would have to find a way to finagle the licenses for those games from their respective owners, and in the latter two cases, would probably have to strike a deal with Hasbro for the right to use D&D. Certainly not impossible, but not very likely for a relatively small studio like inXile.

So what do you guys think?

A couple of days ago, inXile revealed that it was working on a new, "passionately demanded" RPG after completing Wasteland 2 and continuing work on Torment: Tides of Numenera. While there has been no official announcement from the studio, RPG Codex has managed to uncover a few interesting facts: inXile filed a Van Buren trademark registration and a Meantime trademark registration over the past couple of months.

For those who don't know what those names mean, they're kind of important to Fallout's and Wasteland's history. Van Buren was the codename for the ultimately cancelled Fallout 3 project at Interplay, some of which was later imported into Fallout: New Vegas. Not coincidentally, Josh Sawyer was the lead designer for both of those games. Meantime was another canceled Interplay project, a time-travel game set in the same universe and using the same engine as the original Wasteland.

The Van Buren trademark doesn't actually make any sense, though. While I'm sure inXile can get the trademark for that project name, they'd have to partner with Bethesda to get any access to anything related to Fallout, and many of the concepts that formed the foundation of Van Buren were incorporated into New Vegas anyway. Meantime would make more sense as inXile's next project, but that may be a red herring (or pre-emptive trademarking), too. Another realistic option would be a sequel to the original three Bard's Tale games, rather than the satire that was the 2004 remake produced by inXile.

We probably won't see any confirmation of any of this until the new year, though. We'll just have to wait and see when inXile comes up with another crowdfunding campaign to get their new project going in earnest.

If you want to find a real-life version of a post-apocalyptic setting, you have to go to Chernobyl. Abandoned for nearly 30 years after the worst nuclear accident the world has ever seen, it's been the source of inspiration for many video games, movies and other pieces of fiction. But this latest video footage has to be the best and most Fallout-y short film of the former Soviet town I've ever seen.



The music works beautifully with the video, although a good old Inkspots or Louis Armstrong song may have been even better. You can thank filmmaker Danny Cooke for this footage, which was produced for a 60 Minutes piece on Chernobyl, which you can watch here.
h/t IFL Science