Fallout Talking Deathclaw Creator Says They Were Killed Off "Behind My Back"

thegamer.com:

In Fallout 2, we meet a cabal of intelligent deathclaws hiding inside Vault 13, a result of the Enclave experimenting with the FEV virus in an attempt to create subservient supersoldiers. But they escaped, deciding that they wanted to live peaceful lives and coexist with humanity.

So, the Enclave retaliated, and Frank Horrigan--a super mutant in power armour working for the secret service--wiped out all but two of them, cutting down their civilisation in its infancy. According to their creator, John Deiley, this happened without his knowledge.

"One day I was walking down the hallway and I saw Feargus [Urquhart] in one of the programmer's offices and I saw the screen over the programmer's shoulders and it was [Vault 13]," Deiley says. "I went in there and I said, 'What's going on?' [They said,] 'Oh, well, we've decided to eliminate this area from the game. But we don't want to just not include it. So, the Enclave is going to kill them all off.' And that was that. They didn't come to me and let me know. They didn't ask me about it. They just behind my back did it."

They didn't ask me about it. They just behind my back did it.

There's an urban myth among Fallout fans that there's an unfinished alternate ending in which you can save the intelligent deathclaws by killing a scientist called Dr Schreber. However, Deiley says that, to the best of his knowledge, "that was never put into the game."

Chris Avellone was fairly outspoken about his views on talking deathclaws, arguing that they were "too silly". But Deiley doesn't agree; "I mean, you've got super mutants and ghouls, why not have something that can stand up to the super mutants?"

Despite the backlash, he says that the initial pitch went well. Urquhart asked for something "unique" to finish one of the areas, suggesting that Deiley do something new with the deathclaws, so he went away and coined the idea of them being experimented on and turned into these juvenile intelligent creatures running a small