Bethesda Game Studios boss Todd Howard has responded to fans who are ‘disappointed’ that the studio hasn’t isn’t a new Fallout game to coincide with the hit Fallout TV Show, opting instead to double down on supporting older titles
Speaking to the Games Business, the veteran RPG developer revealed that Fallout is in a “unique” position in that there are so many different ways to connect to the world. He explained that while they “were ready” for new audiences and returning players off the back of the show, the response was “way bigger’ than he ever thought, allowing the studio a bigger advantage for the release of the second season.
“We were doing 5 to 6x our usual play patterns and numbers during Season 1,” Howard told the outlet. “Therefore, going into Season 2, we knew we could take advantage of that even more.”
The approach has seen a mixed bag in terms of fan reception. In the run up Fallout Season 2, Bethesda launched the Fallout 4 Anniversary edition, clearly looking to capitalise on the show’s hype, but the new release was flooded with negative reviews on Steam as players grappled with new bugs, frequent crashes and incompatibility with fan-favourite mods. Bethesda has released a patch for the game, but there are still major technical issues.
Earlier this month, Fallout 76 saw the Burning Springs land, which was better received, and featured the show’s iconic Ghoul, voiced by actor Walton Goggins. Bethesda Game Studios Austin, the team largely behind the popular multiplayer game, has also promised years of additional content for that partiular title is also in the works.
“Everybody will say to us, ‘it’s really disappointing you don’t have a new game to take advantage of this’. And it’s like, ‘well, the show is great.’”
Todd Howard on the lack of a new Fallout game.
Howard explained that all of the already released games have “very, very large audiences”, so they do believe their approach of re-releases and additional content drops is “taking advantage” of the show’s success.
“Fallout right now is unique,” Howard says. “You want to watch a show? We got a great show. You want to play an online game? We have a great online game. You want to play a single player? We have Fallout 4. You want to play a mobile game? There’s Fallout Shelter. And they’re all operating with very, very large audiences.”
Howard told the outlet that while there are those who are disappointed there isn’t a “main” game to coincide with the show, it’s still “doing great” for the popularity of pre-existing games, and that the next main game, likely Fallout 5, will also benefit massively.
“Everybody will say to us, ‘it’s really disappointing you don’t have a new game to take advantage of this’. And it’s like, ‘well, the show is great,’” he said. “It is what it is. It’s doing great for us. We’re taking advantage of it. And when the next main Fallout game comes along. I think it’ll do great as well’.”
The next mainline Fallout game is expected to release after The Elder Scrolls 6, which isn’t expected until 2027 at the earliest. While Fallout 3 Remastered is in development at Virtuos Studios, the team behind The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Fallout 5 likely won’t release until sometime after 2030.
Nevertheless, there have been reports that “multiple” Fallout games are in development while Bethesda’s next mainline entry is in pre-production. Hopefully, as Bethesda is now owned by Microsoft, we can get at least one new single-player spin-off game before Fallout 5 releases.
