Interplay launched their new Web site yesterday. It's all pretty and is littered with Earthworm Jim and MDK graphics. More importantly, up in the news section, they have an announcement regarding their new Orange Country offices and the project they'll be working on. It's an MMO, codenamed "Project V13," which isn't much of a codename if you're trying to hide a Fallout project that everyone already knows you're supposedly working on.

Interplay sold the Fallout IP to Bethesda (after having previously licensed it to therm for Fallout 3) in the first quarter of 2007 but negotiated to retain the rights to produce the already in-development MMO. Part of the agreement states that they have a limited amount of time to complete the project, however, and the game must hit retail no later than April 14th, 2014.

In addition to the announcement of the new offices, there's one other little tidbit of info Interplay has released that's bound to intrigue Fallout fans.  The company has hired Chris Taylor, one of the designers of the original Fallout game, to take on the role of "Lead System Designer." He's no Tim Cain or Chris Avellone, but I like knowing that someone familiar with the franchise will be involved.

After a lengthy drought of information regarding the title, it's great to hear a little something on it. I don't normally play MMOs (the last one I played was Ultima Online back in 2000) but, depending on how this pans out, I might have to give serious thought to getting into this one. How about you guys?

[via dyslixec's CBlog]