Fallout: London, the massive Fallout 4 mod that’s recently gained some pretty stiff competition in the ‘cool radiation-themed things that people love, but suffered from some gnarly launch bugs’ department thanks to Stalker 2, featured some really interesting cameos.
Baldur’s Gate 3 voice actor Neil Newbon was one of the biggest names, alongside some folks who’re more known for their place in British culture than games, such as former UK speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow. Now, Newbon’s offered his side of the story as to why he got involved with the mod, provoiding some fresh details to go alongside the tale of ignored DMs we heard when we interviewed Team FOLON’s project lead in the summer.
In an interview with GINX TV for the series ‘The Games That Made Me’, Newbon said: “Astarion and Baldur’s Gate 3 had just kicked off in a wonderful way. I’d heard about Fallout London for a while, and I’d already sent them a message like a year before. Maybe two years – it was a long time ago, saying ‘hey, this sounds great. I want to be involved. I’m a fan of Fallout and it’s a free mod, that’s not [an] issue. I’d love to offer myself up to help. And they missed my message, for about that year and a half.”
Digging further into why he felt comfortable offering his services for free in this case, Newbon added: “There’s a danger I think when actors become successful that indie developers or double-A’s or whatever, they think they can’t afford you, which is nonsense. So, you know, you see an actor win an award. It doesn’t mean you can’t afford them, because we are jobbing actors at the end of the day. It’s just nice to remind people that actually we’re doing it for the craft.”
The actor also backed up what Team FOLON has said about Barry the Boat – the character he portayed, a robot wedged into a boat the player can use to go back and forth across the Thames – being a very collaborative effort between him and the modders.
Newbon drew inspiratation from characters from classic British sitcom On the Buses (ask your parents or grandma if you weren’t around in the early 60s/70s), which he admits is “probably problematic these days” for the role.
There’s one particular character, called Inspector Cyril, who had like a little Hitler stash and he was like a real jobsworth,” he said, “So I thought the elements of that would be fun for Barry The Boat, because Barry the Boat is basically a bus.
“I just thought it would be funny to add elements of that to him. He was sort of very down, very dour, everything’s a problem. Very British, you know, everything’s a nightmare. I didn’t have any say on the lipstick, but we did improvise a lot.”
I’ll be honest, I’m now a bit sad that I didn’t think of something as brilliant as “very British, you know, everything’s a nightmare” to describe my time playing Fallout: London for review, back before a couple of patches swatted some of those launch bugs.
Neil Newbon’s episode of ‘The Games That Made Me’ broadcasts on GINX TV throughout December. GINX TV is available in the UK via Freeview channel 282 and Sky Glass channel 419, and is available on the Ginx.tv website.
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