New Xbox boss Asha Sharma is reportedly speeding up development on new The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Halo games as she prepares to hit the “reset” button on Microsoft’s gaming business. Now, Fallout fans are wondering what this means for new games in the post-apocalyptic franchise, while one former Fallout developer has cautioned against pumping out more big new Fallout games faster.
The last mainline Fallout video game was 2018’s Fallout 76, which added multiplayer elements to the traditionally single-player open world role-playing series. It is now over a decade since Fallout 4 came out. The promised Fallout 5, which will not arrive until after The Elder Scrolls 6, seems a long way away indeed.
Could Bethesda follow The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered and release a remaster of Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or perhaps even a Fallout: New Vegas 2 as a stop gap? In a recent interview with IGN, Howard remained coy on the possibility, although remasters are reportedly still in the works.
Either way, it seems clear that Microsoft wants more from Fallout as well as its other big hitters, and Fallout fans themselves are keen to find out what’s next from the franchise. But Skyrim lead designer Bruce Nesmith, who left Bethesda at the end of Starfield development, said faster sequels “risk fan fatigue.”
Speaking to FRVR, Nesmith said: “In my opinion, the biggest risks of shortened schedules is quality, reduced features, polish, or bugs. The things that are done last end up getting set aside to complete the game on time. And of course faster dev times would result in faster sequels. But that’s the wrong question. Those sequels risk disappointing fans.”
One potential solution is having other studios make either mainline sequels or spinoffs. Could Bethesda have Microsoft-owned Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian, for example, make Fallout: New Vegas 2?
In a recent interview with The 41st Precinct, Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer, who is still at Obsidian, said that he’s not making a new Fallout game until he is — because that’s a decision that would come from on high, as it did when he was tasked with making New Vegas.
“These are things that take place above my head, right?” Sawyer responded when asked if he thought Obsidian might be given the chance to make a Fallout sequel or remake or be involved in the franchise in any way again.
“I’m just a director. I’m the studio design director, which is kind of an advisory position to the teams, and then I’m a game director. But there are titans above me who decide what happens with IPs and things like that. It’s not up to me.”
“So one day you’ll just find out you’ve got to make a Fallout game?”, Sawyer was asked.
“Well, it’s how it happened with New Vegas, so who knows?” he replied.
Obsidian is without a new announced project after both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 failed to hit commercial targets. There are rumors the developer is making another Avowed game, but The Outer Worlds 3 is reportedly not in development. On a more positive note, Grounded 2 — yet another 2025 launch — was a hit. But of the three games Obsidian released last year, it had the shortest (and almost certainly the cheapest) development period by far.
“I know everyone on the internet, on every game we ever announce, will constantly reference back to, ‘When’s the next New Vegas?'” Obsidian’s VP of operations Marcus Morgan said last year, referencing the studio’s beloved Fallout game that’s served as the inspiration for the hit Amazon TV series’ second season setting.
How do you rank Obsidian’s games?
How do you rank Obsidian’s games?
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma sent shockwaves through the video game industry with her now infamous “reset” memo, in which she revealed that Microsoft’s gaming business has a 3% accountability margin (assumed to mean profit margin). “Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform, and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time. Going forward, this cannot continue,” Sharma said.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has warned of a “bloodbath” at Xbox, with five studios said to be under threat of closure. Meanwhile, Microsoft is reassessing its investment in externally developed games. It just pulled funding for IO Interactive’s upcoming fantasy project, which Xbox was set to publish. Hideo Kojima’s Xbox horror game OD, however, is safe from the chopping block.
Microsoft told Bloomberg it is “taking a fresh look at where we invest so we’re focusing on our highest priorities.”
“We’re not reducing our overall investment in games. We expect to invest about the same in content as we did last year. What’s changing is where we’re investing and the kinds of projects we’re backing,” Microsoft said.
It increasingly looks like that means investing in more games in franchises such as Fallout. Earlier this month, The Information reported that Sharma plans to “boost spending on new Xbox games from its most popular franchises to excite die-hard fans,” while also making significant layoffs. Fallout and Elder Scrolls are said to be “two particular areas of focus” due to their “iconic status in the gaming world” and the fact that they haven’t produced new mainline titles in years.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
