Interplay It Again

Odd timing, this - on the same day that Obsidian, a company formed from the ashes of Black Isle, finally step out of Bioware's shadow and announce their own game, we also see the return of Black Isle's much-troubled owners, Interplay.

Interplay.com now hosts this excited image:

and a Coming Soon message. See the full pic here. Going left to right, we've got MDK, Earthworm Jim, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and apparently the browny-green bit underneath the Interplay logo is concept art from Fallout Online. Edit - and Descent on the far left.

Goodness, how exciting. Although seems unlikely a rejuvenated Interplay is going to suddenly announce new games in all those franchises, - though they've previously intimated they do want to pursue sequels to all of them. It's more probable this is a spot of 'hey, remember us and all the cool stuff we've done' promotion to encourage folk to take the publisher seriously again. But why?

N4G suspect Interplay are about to submit a new performance report - so perhaps the publisher's finally got some money to spend on new games. If so, what? Lest we forget, Interplay’s deal flogging off the Fallout 3 rights to Bethesda did stipulate that they got to hang onto Fallout Online, so long as they started working on it within two years from last April.

Amusingly, here's a post from proto-RPS last year that I don't even remember writing, sniffing at the Bethesda-Interplay arrangement and the then-current state of the latter's coffers. Look at it, all virginal with its zero comments, no disparaging accusations of reporting rumours, grammar nit-picking or perfect strangers calling each other names. Ah, simpler times.