Bethesda’s Todd Howard has made it clear that when it comes to creating a new Fallout game after Fallout 3, there was only one studio that made sense: Obsidian Entertainment. Over the past decade, fans have tossed around a theory that Bethesda might be secretly miffed that Fallout: New Vegas is often hailed as the best entry in the series, leading them to decide to keep Fallout development solely in-house. However, while a direct sequel to New Vegas would definitely be a welcome surprise—especially considering how long fans might have to wait for Fallout 5—I doubt there’s any lingering animosity between the teams. Howard seems to regard Obsidian favorably at the very least.
In an interview with Game Informer, Howard shared insights on leveraging the momentum of Fallout 3 while the main Bethesda team was engrossed in developing Skyrim. This led them to collaborate with Obsidian. “They were the only choice,” Howard explained. “They had done something similar with [Star Wars] Knights of the Old Republic 2, and we knew them really well. We knew we were going onto Skyrim, the franchise was back, but we knew there was going to be a long break until Fallout 4—how can we keep this going?”
Obsidian’s lead creative designer John Gonzalez also weighed in, noting that “everyone on the internet” keeps clamoring for Fallout: New Vegas 2. Yet, he emphasized that the devs at Obsidian are currently focused on their own intellectual properties, and “Xbox has been pretty supportive” of their work.
Exploring the roots of the Fallout games, Gonzalez pointed out, “There was Fallout DNA here; there were people who had worked on the original title, and then also the second game.” Obsidian was established by former staff of Black Isle Studios and Interplay after the cancellation of the original Fallout 3 project, codename Van Buren.
Howard noted that the only directive given to Obsidian was to focus on faction-based gameplay—the very element that made the game so beloved. Gonzalez elaborated, saying, “The thing that made New Vegas special was the ferocious focus on choice-and-consequence gameplay.” He described New Vegas as “a very Obsidian-focused experience,” emphasizing, “It’s all about allowing the player to have tremendous amounts of narrative impact, narrative control.”
Looking to the future, Bethesda’s Todd Howard hinted that “we are doing other things with Fallout that we haven’t announced.”