The Fallout TV show was a wild success in itself (65 million viewers, making it the second most successful on Prime Video) but also in terms of its impact on the games (Fallout 4 alone is currently sitting pretty with 138,181). 24-hour peak player count, and that's just on Steam). If even 10-27 year old games can see major spikes in traffic, a new game would probably bust the pants off even Starfield. Unfortunately, developer and publisher Bethesda didn't have one in the room ready to take advantage of the show's success, and isn't ready to release Fallout 5 or a side game anytime in the near future, given its current projects.
This raises the question: why not contract the work to another studio? That way Bethesda can hold their coffers longer while fans don't have to wait as long. Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and loved by fans and critics alike and did strong numbers in the end, so what's the fuss? Well, director Todd Howard didn't say no, in a recent interview with Kinda Funny Games.
While he's been quick to push Fallout 76 as the favorite game right now (and he's right that it's improved a lot since its botched launch), what many fans want is a traditional single-player entry, which as it stands would require. external team will be released anytime soon. On that front, he leaves it open as a possibility.
Related: The Last of Us show walked so Fallout could Olympic sprint
“We always had those conversations,” says Howard. “We've done a lot of things for the show. It might not seem like a big new game, but we added content in Fallout 76 for the show. We look at what we're doing with the franchise and we say. do we still feel good about – I can't reveal it now – our breakout star for the franchise.”
“When is Season 2?” he continued. “What are we doing on cell phone? What are we doing at 76? What are we doing with this thing? What are we doing with this other thing? When are these going to land? If I could snap my fingers and have them all out and ready, I would. But the main thing is how we deliver these at a high quality, that's always most important.”
Various Obsidian developers have previously noted that the relationship with Bethesda was rocky at times during the development of New Vegas and after its release. Commenting on all of this, Howard had nothing but praise for the game and studio.
“They did an amazing job with New Vegas,” he states. “(Their CEO) Feargus is one of my favorite people in the video game industry, and he's been around for so many decades and done so many things and seen it all. They've done an amazing job. I can't speak. to things that we do with the franchise in the future, obviously, but New Vegas is a very, very important game for us and our fans. We think they've done an incredible job. Obviously, Season 2 will feature some of the New Vegas, and we're concerned about keeping the key ones events of that game.”
Perhaps being a bit evasive, he tries to avoid spicier titles (like this one), but hopefully, this stated respect for the studio and game is a sign that the relationship has improved over the years and they are open to collaboration with Obsidian and possibly others developers (InXile?) again. Obsidian probably doesn't need the help these days with recent hits Outer Worlds, Pentiment and Grounded, but it would certainly be a passion project for them, and the world could always use more of those.
Want more Fallout content? Check out 10 Things we hope to see in Fallout Season 2 here in Pro Game Guides.
