Concept art for Fallout Online that proved there was concept art for Fallout Online.

This screenshot is the closest we came to seeing Fallout Online in action.

Wish you were here indeed.

Interplay's Fallout MMO, originally dubbed Project V13 before being announced as Fallout Online, also went by another name: FOOL. And after the protracted three-year legal battle over the game ended with a $2 million payout from Bethesda, it appears we were all fools to think Fallout Online would ever emerge from the Vault.Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media sent word yesterday afternoon that its case against Interplay had finally been settled. Interplay surrendered any and all licensing rights to create Fallout Online, and even agreed to give up its right to publish its Fallout PC classics, including the original game, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. The settlement came as a bit of a shock to anyone that's been following the case, because all previous signs pointed toward the courts siding with Interplay. But dig deeper into the matter and you discover that this is exactly how the case would inevitably end -- and perhaps what Interplay intended all along.To bring you to that conclusion, we first have to go back to 2007. That's the year that Bethesda Softworks acquired the rights to the Fallout franchise from Interplay for a reported $5.75 million. However, according to Interplay President Eric Caen, the deal left Interplay with the license to create a Fallout MMO, with a few key stipulations: Interplay had to raise at least $30 million in funding for the project by the end of March 2009 and officially begin development on the game by April 4 2009.In September 2009, Bethesda claimed Interplay failed to meet those requirements and sued the studio for breach of contract. As part of the lawsuit, Bethesda sought a preliminary injunction that would prohibit Interplay from developing the Fallout MMO. Here's where it starts to get interesting. The District Court denied Bethesda's preliminary injunction against Fallout Online, stating that Interplay proved it had begun development on the game. Despite the ruling, it appeared that Interplay, a publisher struggling to stay afloat financially, would never be able to raise the substantial funds required to launch a Fallout MMO.Then, in June 2010, the official Fallout Online website was launched, and Interplay even invited fans to sign up for the game's beta. Against the odds, it appeared the Fallout MMO was alive and well, and actually coming soon.Seemingly as surprised as the rest of us, Bethesda once again set its legal team to work and took its case to the U.S. Court of Appeals. And guess what? Bethesda lost once again. In October 2011, the appeals court upheld the original ruling and once again denied Bethesda's request for an injunction against Fallout Online. It appeared there was nothing Bethesda could do to stop the MMO from being released.Then, just last month, word came down of a settlement. Having lost in the courtroom, it appeared Bethesda was finally ready to throw in the towel. But as we learned yesterday, throwing in the towel actually meant opening up the check book.The question now is why? After battling in the courts for more than three years to earn the right to make Fallout Online, why would Interplay finally cave for $2 million? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it can be argued Interplay was simply looking for a payout all along.In its 2010 SEC filing , Interplay revealed that, as of December 31, 2010, its cash balance was approximately $3,000 and its working capital totaled approximately $2.8 million."If we do not receive sufficient financing or sufficient funds from our operations we may (i) liquidate assets, (ii) seek or be forced into bankruptcy and/or (iii) continue operations, but incur material harm to our business, operations or financial condition," Interplay stated. "These measures could have a material adverse effect on our ability to continue as a going concern."How could a publisher on the verge of shuttering its doors claim to be making an MMO, a project that would easily reach into the tens of millions of dollars? Enter Masthead Studios . During the course of its legal showdown with Bethesda, Interplay claimed that it had partnered with the Bulgarian MMO developer and publisher -- the studio behind sci-fi MMO Earthrise -- to create Fallout Online.On the surface, this appeared to be a reasonable answer. Masthead launched Earthrise in February 2011, and Interplay claimed that it would use Masthead's infrastructure and proprietary Earthrise Engine to create and launch Fallout Online. However, if we once again dig deeper, it's unlikely this would ever become a reality for a handful of reasons.While Masthead has the infrastructure required to get an MMO off the ground, the studio isn't exactly the picture of financial stability. Earthrise launched in February 2011 to poor reviews, and in November, the studio announced that it would stop charging a subscription to all those who purchased the game because "It is missing polish and has annoyances that spoil the fun in the game. We are learning from our experience and that is why we will remove monthly charges until we bring the game to a quality state that is satisfactory to us and our players." That was a statement from Atanas Atanasov, CEO of Masthead Studios, and it was issued nine months after the game was launched. Call me crazy, but accepting monthly subs from customers for that long before finally admitting your game's quality isn't up to snuff is shady. And given that its first MMO has crashed and burned, did Masthead really have the money to launch another, even bigger MMO?Then there's this little factoid: Interplay's license to create a Fallout MMO did not give it permission to sublicense the property without the approval of Bethesda -- approval that was never requested or granted. Even if Masthead was the perfect partner for Interplay, such a partnership was never legally going to happen.For just a moment, let's look past all the facts that indicate Fallout Online never really had a chance of becoming reality. Let's take Interplay at its word and imagine Fallout Online was on the way, and at the point in development where Interplay could begin accepting beta registrations in. Are you with me? Good, now answer this question: where the hell is it? Beyond a handful of screenshots, a newsletter, and some nice concept art, the closest we ever came to seeing Fallout Online in action was this "teaser trailer" (which in reality was just a flash animation intro on the Fallout Online website):If you're ready to accept beta registrations in June 2010, you've got to have a playable build of the game ready by now, right? Or at least a portion of the game that's playable? It's a reasonable question and one that makes me think we never saw Fallout Online in action because it was never anywhere near an actual, playable game.Interplay was broke and never had the resources required to make a Fallout MMO -- and that's been the case for atime. Way back in 2006, former Black Isle (Interplay's internal RPG studio) leader Feargus Urquhart (the current CEO of Obsidian Entertainment) chatted with Total Video Games about Neverwinter Nights 2. In the course of that interview, he was asked about creating an MMO. According to Urquhart, Interplay approached Black Isle about making a Fallout MMO while he was still with the studio, and he refused."The reason at the time, because I would have loved to have made a Fallout MMO, was that I believed that Interplay was just not in a situation where they had the resources to do it," Urquhart told TVG. "When you go off to do an MMO it's going to cost $100 million before you get it on the shelf; you've gotta buy servers and you've gotta have service people, and you have to have Game Masters. It's an undertaking, and on top of that, it means that you do have to do all that stuff so what else are you going to focus on? What other games are you going to be able to make?"It's a financial situation that only grew worse for Interplay over the years, forcing it to sell its most valuable property, Fallout, to Bethesda in 2007. It's a decision Interplay likely regretted after the runaway success of Fallout 3 in 2008.Did Interplay see a small, improbable opportunity to make a Fallout MMO a reality after Fallout 3's explosion? It's possible. But after considering all of the available facts, it also appears possible the studio was simply looking for a way to squeeze another payday out of Bethesda by creating the illusion of Fallout Online -- Fallout fans that actually rooted for the game be damned.My own personal verdict? I was a fool to ever think Fallout Online, a game ironically also known as FOOL, would ever happen.