Bethesda Games Studios announced what we should expect from the development team, in lieu of the massive layoffs happening at Xbox recently. This formal announcement basically confirms the rumours and reports that a new mainline Fallout game is in development, among other things.
The big ticker announcement is Fallout 5 is indeed real and this is the official announcement for the game. It’s currently in pre-production, the early phase of game development where small teams explore and pin down what the game should be before scaling up into full production.
As reported by other media outlets, Fallout 5 will see Obsidian (the developers behind Fallout New Vegas, and famously used that cred to promote The Outer Worlds) collaborating with Bethesda Game Studios.
Reports suggest Josh Sawyer, one of the writers that worked on the much-loved Fallout New Vegas and the creator of Pentiment (the unique game that can only be made in the previous Game Pass-focused Xbox leadership) is leading the development of Fallout 5.
However, BGS is currently focusing on The Elder Scrolls VI. Announced with a teaser back as far back as 2018, BGS says that “the majority of our team currently working on the next chapter of the franchise” and are aware that it has been a long while—15 years—since the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. No ETA on when can we expect to hear anything about TES VI, but BGS reassures “we’re where we planned to be, loving how it looks, and playing it every day.”
The Elder Scrolls VI exists, in some form. So far, that teaser from eight years ago is all we have going for that game.
Both Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls VI are powered by the next-generation of the Creation Engine, Creation Engine 3.
BGS also confirms that Starfield, the interstellar (or less than stellar, depends on who you ask, we however think it’s stellar) open world shooter with light RPG elements, will continue getting updates as it enters Year 3 with “new stories, targeted gameplay improvements, and additional updates, while preparing for the launch of new Starborn content next year.” Fallout 76, much-derided at launch, is well alive 10 years since launch with over 35 million copies sold and will continue to be getting updates.
The post also confirms the remasters for Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are in the works.
This reassurance post is one of a few damage-control news the greater Xbox has rolled out in the aftermath of the “reset,” which saw 1600 employees lost their jobs, with another 1600 roles to be cut throughout the year and several studios dives. One of the developers badly affected by the layoffs, id Software, recently reassured fans that they’ve only shrunk the team down to the size when they launched Doom (2016) with their proprietary idTech game engine still intact and supported.