Was Fallout 2 Leaked By Some Scummy Journalists?

[TheKingofVault14]

Awhile back I found the Development Logs for Fallout 2, and I saw an interesting update made by Feargus Urquhart on October 30th, 1998 which is this:

As you can see, when the game went gold. Black Isle handed out copys of the game to various people of The Press, and somebody thought it was a good idea to leak the game to the Internet.
Can anybody confirm if this actually happened? Did anyone gain early access to the game before it was officially released because of this?

For those who want to see the Development Logs for themselves, here it is!
Fallout 2 Development Logs:
http://archive.nma-fallout.com/fallout2/official_site/log2.shtml

Oh, and according to FO2 Lead Artist Tramell T Ray Isaac, he said that it wasn't leaked. Which is odd to me, because if that's the case, then what was Feargus talking about in this update log?

 

[TheKingofVault14]

Fallout 2's 25th Anniversary is today WOOHOO!!!
Here's a clip of the Launch Party that took place that day:



Oh and BTW, for those wondering where I got the info of FO2's release date being October 30th, 1998. Well here's a quick rundown:

As you can see here, I already posted the 10/30/98 FO2 Development Log entry above, however this picture includes the log entry from the week before:

Confirming that FO2 was released around that day & time. Now with that, I've asked certain members of the Development Team about this, and the one who was able to give a definitive answer was FO2 Concept Artist Brian Menze:

Two years ago, I DMed him on Instagram asking about FO2's release date, and showed him the Development Log entries. So after seeing those, he actually remembered exactly the date & explained why it was on that day as seen pictured above.


And that's pretty much it sadly, I tried getting in contact with certain other key players of the team, but to no avail! People like MCA, Gary Platner, Matthew Norton to name a few, I couldn't find a way to get a hold of them. And on the other side of it, guys like Feargus Urquhart, Colin McComb couldn't remember a thing about it. I mean, I did ask Tramell "T-Ray" Isaac about this, and he said it was either October 29th, or October 31st. Now even though the time frame there is fairly accurate, it doesn't fully align with the timeline of the Development Logs unlike how Brian's statement did. So his doesn't count!


So yeah, unless anyone can debunk & claim otherwise, October 30th, 1998 is the real release date for Fallout 2! Not the day before on October 29th, and certainly not September 30th! Seriously, where the heck does the Sept 30th date keep coming from!?


Anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY FALLOUT 2!!! Here's to 25 years & beyond!



Also, here's a new link/archival link to the Fallout 2 Development Logs:
https://web.archive.org/web/2022052...fallout.com/fallout2/official_site/log2.shtml


The one from my previous post above doesn't work anymore.