Spoiler Warning: Beware minor spoilers for Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and the Fallout TV adaptation.
One story to come out of the latest mess at Xbox is one that I predicted back in January: the next Fallout video game is being taken away from Bethesda. I thought it would be interesting to talk about that today, as well as consider what a new title in the storied – but arguably sullied – post-apocalyptic franchise could have to offer.
As always, everything we’re discussing today is the *subjective, not objective* opinion of just one person. If I highlight a part of the Fallout franchise you despise, or criticise something you adore… that’s okay. There ought to be enough room in the fan community for differences of opinion and respectful conversations that don’t descend into toxicity. I will also say, for the record, that I haven’t played every game in the Fallout series (I didn’t play Fallout 1 or 2 back in the ’90s, and I still haven’t played New Vegas), and that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the Fallout TV adaptaion. I don’t hate the show, but the best thing I can say about it is that it’s “solid, but not spectacular.” If you think any or all of that renders my take on the next Fallout video game invalid… well, here’s your chance to click off and read something else, I guess!
It’s also worth noting that what we’re going to get into today has not been officially confirmed by Bethesda, Xbox, or Microsoft at time of writing. Rumours abound in the games industry, and while what I’ve heard about Fallout seems credible to me based on the sources that have stated it, until it’s official it should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt. It isn’t my intention to stir the pot (too much), or add to unsubstantiated rumours, but this topic is of interest, and I think the sources are reliable enough to warrant an article like this.
I think the first and most important thing to say is this: Bethesda losing the right to make the next Fallout video game is *entirely* the fault of Todd Howard and the other executives at the studio. I have precisely zero sympathy for any of them, and frankly, this situation should be neither a shock nor a disappointment to the senior folks at Bethesda. Their own actions and policies directly caused this, and the only surprising thing, for me, is that it’s taken this long for Xbox and Microsoft to act.
In the ’90s and into the 2000s, when Bethesda was a smaller outfit and when games didn’t take quite so long to make, it was totally okay to only work on one game at a time. But the gaming landscape has shifted – both for Bethesda itself and the industry at large – and for years, I’ve been struck by the absolute bone-headed, stubborn idiocy of Bethesda Game Studios to continue to insist on only developing one project at a time.
Backed up by the almost limitless resources of Xbox and Microsoft, and with several subsidiaries under its own umbrella, Bethesda has had years to build up or adapt a second team capable of developing one of its big open-world role-playing titles. And… the execs chose not to do so. The result of that is that it’s going to be near enough two decades in between The Elder Scrolls V and The Elder Scrolls VI – and, left to their own devices, Bethesda would’ve allowed a similar span of time to elapse in between Fallout titles, too. Fallout 4 launched in 2015, and with The Elder Scrolls VI (Bethesda’s next project) not launching until 2028 at the earliest, it would be 2033 or beyond before another Fallout game could be ready. And that’s under the best circumstances, assuming that game development cycles don’t lengthen any further in the years ahead.
Photo: Microsoft/Xbox
For obvious reasons – or, at least, reasons that *should* be obvious – two-decade-long waits in between entries in a series are beyond unacceptable. Fans want games sooner than that, of course, but from a business perspective, I mean… it’s just idiotic. Given the resources available to Bethesda, and the amount of time they’ve been working with Microsoft and Xbox, there’s been more than enough time to create a second development team. That would’ve allowed Bethesda to keep their IP in-house while also getting more games ready more quickly. But Bethesda was unwilling to do that – for some reason – so it’s now fallen to Xbox’s new leadership to step in.
Good.
There’s a happy medium somewhere in between the annual releases of something like Call of Duty or EA Sports titles and the insane waits for new entries in series like Fallout and Grand Theft Auto. Too many titles in the same series coming along too quickly often means releases are lower quality (something Bethesda *definitely* can’t afford!) or that franchise fatigue will eventually set in. Look at the likes of Assassin’s Creed for an example of that. But there’s got to be a balance – twenty-year waits for new titles absolutely takes the piss, and worse, it risks making new entries in dormant franchises less interesting to audiences.
Since Fallout 4 was launched more than a decade ago, gamers have been treated to open-world adventures like Red Dead Redemption II and Ghost of Tsushima, and role-playing epics like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Not only are those games giving players new and fun experiences, but in many ways, they surpass what Bethesda has shown itself to be capable of so far. Fallout 76 may have appealed to fans of multiplayer experiences, but for a lot of fans of the series, that title hasn’t filled the void left behind by a new single-player title. And with other games coming along and doing many of the same things as Bethesda did – only better – well, there’s a case to be made that Bethesda has been waiting too long, leaving too much time in between releases, and prioritising the wrong things.
All of which is to say that I totally understand Xbox and Microsoft’s decision here. If Bethesda isn’t capable of making a new Fallout game anytime soon, because their sole development team is currently dedicated to The Elder Scrolls VI… well, why should the parent company wait another three or four years (at minimum) before development can even *start?* This was not only self-inflicted by Todd Howard and other senior figures, but it was so predictable you could’ve seen it from space.
However, as is often the case… that isn’t all there is to say.
The studio that Microsoft and Xbox seem to be tapping to lead this new Fallout project is Obsidian. That name should be familiar to Fallout fans; Obsidian developed Fallout: New Vegas in 2010, and that title is widely hailed as the best modern Fallout game, eclipsing both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 in terms of narrative, characters, setting, and world-building. Obsidian also developed one of my favourite-ever games: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. So… good, right?
Well, not so fast. Obsidian’s recent titles haven’t been quite so hot, to be blunt about it. I tried out Avowed last year, but bounced off it after a few hours, feeling that its world, characters, and core narrative hadn’t really gripped me the way I’d hoped. And The Outer Worlds 2, while arguably overshadowed by conversations around its price, underperformed. Obsidian is also a different studio in 2026 than it had been in 2010, with many of the New Vegas development team no longer working there.
Then we come to a pretty disturbing rumour. This part of the story, more so than anything else we’ve been discussing, should be treated as unconfirmed – I will give that caveat straight away. But it’s been suggested that Obsidian had already been working on its own post-apocalyptic title prior to being tapped by Xbox and Microsoft to develop a Fallout game, and that this game – which was never meant to have anything to do with Fallout – will be adapted and revised to work in the Fallout universe. In short, a non-Fallout game may be “reskinned” to have more of a Fallout flavour.
That’s a double-edged sword – at best. On the one hand, I can see there being an advantage to converting an already-in-progress project like this; it would mean the new game could be ready for release more quickly. However, it could also be *painfully* obvious that the new game was never meant to be set in the Fallout universe if this transformation isn’t handled perfectly, and there could be all kinds of issues that arise. The game’s world and characters could feel inconsistent with what’s come before, or there could be questlines or factions that just don’t seem to fit. If Obsidian takes its time – and, crucially, Xbox and Microsoft are willing to allow sufficient time to be taken – I think a lot of that can be mitigated. But if, as I suspect is the case, the entire reason for handing Obsidian the Fallout license is because Xbox’s new leaders are panicking, there’s going to be a rush to get this game out as soon as possible. And if, as has been suggested, it’s going to be built atop an existing game that wasn’t originally set in that world? I think fans are gonna pick up on that.
A proper Fallout game, in the current gaming landscape, is gonna take four-plus years to make. And even if Microsoft and Xbox throw everything they have at the project, we’re realistically looking at a game that won’t launch before 2030, and will almost certainly be a next-generation title for Xbox’s new hardware. So even this move, panicky and rushed as it seems, still won’t result in a new Fallout game immediately. However, four years is better than fourteen, so fans should be able to look forward to a return to the post-apocalyptic wasteland far sooner than they might’ve been expecting.
With the third season of the TV adaptation already in production, it’s still unclear to me whether a new Fallout game will be ready before the series concludes its run. It would obviously be very useful for both projects if the game could be released before the show’s finale, but I’m not convinced, yet, that that’ll be possible. Games this size take time to develop, and even if Obsidian throws all of its people onto this one project, it’s still not going to be a rapid process. And if it is… well, the game’s gonna be shit, isn’t it? As I said above, there’s a balance to be struck when it comes to game development; take things too slow and you end up with an irrelevant brand that fewer people are interested in, but rushing and crunching almost always result in an inferior, broken title. Microsoft and Xbox clearly want this game ready ASAP, but my advice would be not to set an arbitrary deadline and don’t try to rush it.
From my point of view, I don’t have any particular expectations or wishes for a new Fallout game – but there are a few basic things that I think Obsidian needs to keep in mind. A new Fallout title would need to be true to the formula of Fallout 3 and 4, so it will have to be fully open-world – which isn’t something Obsidian has done with The Outer Worlds 2 or Avowed. The game will also, realistically, need to be bigger than both of those games, even if it’s technically a spin-off rather than the official “Fallout 5.” In fact, I doubt very much whether this game would be titled “Fallout 5!” And I think, in terms of setting, the game would need to be based in the remains of the United States; as popular as some fan mods have been, Fallout is a distinctively American thing with its aesthetic, its alt-history, and its Americana.
I would imagine that a new game would connect, in some way, to stories, themes, characters, or settings from the Fallout TV show. That would be the best way to get “brand synergy” going, after all – something a corporation like Microsoft adores! So that probably means the new game would be set sometime after the events of the TV show, and any characters who survive to the end of the show could, in theory, make a cameo in the new game. We’ve already seen the Ghoul appear in Fallout 76, and that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. As much fun as it could be to set the new game in a different era – perhaps in between the events of Fallout 76 and Fallout 3 – I suspect that won’t happen.
Location-wise, aside from Vegas, Washington, and Boston… the game could really be set anywhere. If rumoured remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas are true, then I highly doubt a new, original game would want to re-use the same setting, but I could see a New Vegas 2 potentially being greenlit, given the studio involved. I still don’t think it’s necessarily the most likely, but you never know! Some fans have suggested that a new game developed by someone other than Bethesda might be set away from the East Coast; Bethesda’s games have all been set in that region, with earlier titles and New Vegas, which weren’t developed by Bethesda, being set in the western U.S. That may just be coincidence, though, and I wouldn’t read too much into it!
I think pretty much any major American city that hasn’t already been explored is fair game for an adaptation. So you could see New York City, perhaps, Chicago (though that might draw unfavourable comparisons with Cyberpunk 2077′s sequel), or somewhere like Seattle or Detroit. Having said all that, I got it completely wrong when I said that Grand Theft Auto VI would (and should) be set in a new city that the series hadn’t explored before… so I could be wrong here, too!
That’s all for today. I wanted to share my thoughts on the news that the next Fallout game is to be stripped away from Bethesda. If a company sits on a license and does effectively nothing with it for a decade, and has no plans to for at least the next four years… I mean, what did we expect? The reason I predicted that this would happen is because it seemed so obvious, and I really don’t feel bad for Todd Howard or any of the Bethesda higher-ups whose intransigence and refusal to move with the times caused this.
Despite not being the world’s biggest Fallout fan, I’m pretty sure I’ll check out the new game when it’s ready (assuming I’m able to do so, anyway). Obsidian is about as good a studio as Microsoft and Xbox could’ve picked for a project like this, in spite of recent titles not being quite at the same level as New Vegas or KotOR II. There are reasons to be optimistic… unless you’re Todd Howard, I guess.
The Fallout franchise is the copyright of Bethesda, Xbox, and Microsoft. A new Fallout game has not been officially announced, but may be in early pre-production. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 