Twinfinite writes "Where CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was like a generational leap in the quality of open-world RPGs, Skyrim’s ancient DNA courses so blatantly through the veins of Fallout 4 that it feels woefully long in the tooth by comparison. The design, aesthetic, and general composition really are shockingly similar. It seems obvious to me that Fallout 4 was developed in a bit of a vacuum, carved out of an archaic foundation that ensured it would never feel contemporary. Moving forward, though, that simply won’t do."
An independent UK developer says it’s been forced to announce and postpone its game on the same day, and lay off more than half of its staff, due to the sharp downturn in investment in the games industry.
Waiting a decade for new instalments in franchises as massive as Fallout and Elder Scrolls feels like a waste.
Microsoft have Obsidian but I feel it's Bethesda who just don't want to play ball as they've always said they want to do it themselves.
Once MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have put the Outer Worlds 2 on the back burner, allow Bethesda to finish off its own Space RPG with Starfield (despite totally different tone why have two in your first party portfolio with two developers who's gameplay is a tad similar) and got Obsidian for one of their projects to make a spiritual successor to New Vegas.
When the Elder Scrolls VI is finished Bethesda can then onto the main numbered Fallout 5 themselves.
The Outer Worlds 2 started development in 2019 so putting it on the back burner wouldn't have been the end of the world, they'd have always come back to it once Fallout was done and it would have been nicely spaced out from Starfields release once they had most likely stopped supporting it and all the expansions were released.
If they did this back in 2020 when they bought Zenimax and the game had a good, steady 4 - 5 years development, you might have seen it release in 2025.
We are literally going to be waiting until 2030 at the very earliest for Fallout 5 and all they seem bothered about is pushing Fallout 76.
Its not just only Todd not playing ball.
Obsidian have made a name for themselves in delivering stellar RPGs, but most famous once have always been sequels/spin-offs to borrowed IPs like KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Stick of Truth etc.
Obsidian wants to invest more in their own original IPs like Outer Worlds or Pillars of Eternity with Avowed.
Similar to what Bluepoint & inXile wants to do or Kojima is doing (i.e not involving anymore in Konami's IPs).
So yea, even if New Vegas has the most votes from 3D Fallout fans, Obsidian just wants to do their own thing, like any aspiring dev studio and MS is likely currently respecting that.
But a future Fallout game from Obsidian will surely happen. Founder Feargus Urquhart has already stated an year ago that they're eager to make a new Fallout game with Bethesda, New Vegas 2 or otherwise. Urquhart was the director of the very first 1995's Fallout game after all.
And don't forget Brian Fargo and his studio inXile, as Brian Fargo was the director of Fallout's 1988 predecessor: Wasteland
Obsidian should take over the FO IP. They're do far better with it than Bethesda who hasn't made a great game for almost 15 years
@KyRo
So, by 15 years, you mean Fallout 3 was the last great game Bethesda made?
You don't consider Skyrim a good game, which came out 13 years ago?
I'd consider Fallout 4 a pretty decent game as well. It's Story & RPG elements were a bit downgrade from New Vegas but the exploration and shooting on the other hand, were upgrades.
FO76 was disappointing and Starfield could've been better at launch I'll agree.
Kyro idk why you got downvoted. Obsidian has shown they can do a better fallout once. Fallout 4 while liking the game was a step down tbh
I disagree. Part of these games is the support for the mod community. If they move to releasing a "next game" every 2 or 3 years, the modding support plummets and the franchises turn into just another run of the mill RPG.
Make the games good enough to withstand the test of time, to keep people coming back to them and expanding on them with mod support.
I dont think anyone is saying they need to come out every 2 years (not to mention almost no game is released that quickly anymore)
By the time Fallout 5 comes out, it will be more than 15 years since Fallout 4 came out (same with ES6 coming out 15 years after Skyrim). Even if you want to use F76 as the metric for the most recent release, that one came out in 2018. It will be a miracle if F5 comes out before 2030
The point is that for a studio that doesnt seem to operate with multiple teams doing several projects at once, that their projects normally take 4-5 years as a minimum, and that now they even added Starfield to the rotation, it becomes a 15+ years waiting period between releases for each series, which doesnt make sense. Imagine that Nintendo only released a mainline Mario or Zelda game every 15 years…
They either need to start developing more than 1 project at a time, let someone else take a crack at one of the IPs or significantly reduce their development times
Why should someone else take a crack at one of the IPs? Look at what happened to Final Fantasy as a recent example - there is pretty clear FF fatigue setting in because they are now pumping out titles in the franchise every few years. Pumping out more games faster doesn't always make a series better.
There are plenty of options to make new games, not just create more titles in the same universe at a faster pace.
"Why should someone else take a crack at one of the IPs"
He's literally just told you why
We're waiting like 15 years before a sequel comes out, it's insane
Skyrim came out in 2011, the next game is expected to come out in 2027 at the earliest so that's 16 years apart while Fallout 4 came out in 2015 and might not release until 2031, again 16 years.
We're fine with Bethesda trying new things and doing new IPs like Starfield but adding a new game to the cycle now means a bigger wait. Also Starfield didn't meet most peoples expectations, can you imagine waiting 15 years or so for a sequel and it's disappointing? It would feel even worse because you would have to wait another 15 years to see if they manage to come back from it.
They need to give it to another developer, we don't need main numbered titles but a spin off of Fallout and Elder Scrolls should be cycled in between the long gaps of the main releases.
Once again you are making out people want these games as quick as possible when all we want is a standard development time of at least 4 years or so rather than waiting 15.
At this rate, I'll get two or three more Elder Scrolls games released in my lifetime and I'm not even 40. :(
Yeah I’m going to say it, who cares about the modding community when making a game? Half the time developers only tolerate modders because they fix there game for them.
That's not completely true. I had a good time with fallout games on my ps consoles. So they work just fine
Yeah, let's all advocate for smaller gaps between series' releases, then we'll probably get headlines about how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven. Let them cook.
"how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven" So every Bethesda game then? Got it.
Listen, I would agree if this was about From Software or something, but Bethesda?
🤣
C'mon now. What timeline are you from?
Think about it, they're already bug filled messes on their current schedule, can you imagine how much worse it would be if they rushed things?
@Skuletor
Who's saying to rush the releases? No one is saying that...
People just don't want to be waiting 15 years for a sequel, they aren't working on the game for that long, you do realise that right? The issue isn't coming down to them working on the game and us "rushing them", it's the fact they are working on other games like Starfield now meaning bigger gaps before they even get started on them.
I bet you any more Elder Scrolls VI only entered full development last year when Starfield was finished despite being announced in 2018.
@Foxtrot
It's like Duke19 said, people will complain about anything. If they focus on just Fallout and/or Elder Scrolls, people will complain they're just a Fallout/Elder Scrolls studio, if they branch out and focus on other IP like Starfield, now there's complaints there's too much of a gap between their other game's sequels, it's a lose/lose scenario.
Bethesda [or Microsoft] would have to reallocate internal and external studios towards fallout and elder scrolls titles. Bethesda has the issue of developing 2 big IPs that are large RPGs on rotation. If you want more Fallout and Elder Scrolls, development will have to be outsourced.
A new studio based in Liverpool called Starlight Games is developing a futuristic sports title and is headed by the co-creator of WipEout.
I love Skyrim and all but I’d actually be down for an Oblivion remaster one day. And not exactly a popular opinion, but I think Skyrim > The Witcher 3. *runs*
I hope they do up their game. I want Elder Scrolls 6 to be awesome. To me Witcher 3 is better than Skyrim.
Bethesda definitely need a new next gen engine. And I agree that they need to take a page out of The Witcher 3 and up their all round production values.
Main story and side quests need to be handled better than their old, and as far as F4 still is, system of minimal cutscenes and/or real time animations. There are parts that are pretty interesting sure, but they are still primarily dialogue (text+voice) based storytelling focused in a time when visual storytelling has been more of the norm for a long time now.
Not hating on it as I love my jrpgs for example which are still 90% text based anyways, but Western RPG wise, Bethesda is subpar in story department these days. Top notch for make your own adventures though which is why I love their games still. Keep that and just add modern animated storytelling design as well in more areas.