According to Yahoo Finance, Interplay Entertainment Corp. announced yesterday that it had signed a “binding letter of intent” to develop an MMO with Masthead Studios, the company behind the upcoming MMORPG, Earthrise.

This new MMO, codenamed “Project: V13”, will make use of the tools and technology that the studio is using to develop Earthrise.

It seems to be widely agreed upon around the web that interplay’s Project V13, which has been in development by that studio since November of 2007, is in reality an MMO based on the wildly successful Fallout franchise.

The agreement, it is reported, will result in Interplay and Masthead co-developing the upcoming game with interplay taking the lead.

Interplay Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Herve Caen had this to say about the deal:

“We are looking forward to turning the vision of our game designers into a compelling online gaming experience. The planning and design completed for Project: V13 thus far, combined with Masthead's resources, tools, and growing team of dedicated MMOG developers, will bring this unique game to reality.”

Not surprisingly, Atanas Atanasov, the President of Bulgaria-based Masthead Studios was similarly enthusiastic:

"This arrangement is ideal because it leverages the technology our professionals have specifically built for advanced Massively Multiplayer Online Games into what we expect will be a groundbreaking Interplay gaming title."

Already, speculation is beginning to surface that this new project might curtail or even bury the company’s plans to release their post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise in 2009.

"Earthrise's development and launch will continue as planned", answered Atanasov when questioned by MMORPG.com. We were also told that more information should be forthcoming at some point next week.