Bethesda's Todd Howard Says The Team Doesn't 'Need To Rush' Future Fallout Games

".... I don't think it's bad for people to miss things...."

That's true. Bugthesda have missed having a QA department for decades.

I agree that rushing Fallout projects is a bad idea. Just develop them on a reasonable time-table. Nothing good comes from rushing projects. Particularly when it comes to this dev.

That said:

"Right now, the Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling - we totally get the desire for a new mainline single-player game, and look, those things take time and I don't think it's bad for people to miss things as well."

Something about this part of the statement rubs me the wrong way, and I'm not even sure how to articulate why that is.

Fallout 76 and Fallout 4 are still 'current' in many ways thanks to ongoing support for their MMO and Backwards Compatibility on PS5/Series S/X hardware. In otherwords, they can still sell those games and their DLC content to 'new' Fallout fans eager to find out more about the Fallout IP.

Whilst they don't have to rush out a Fallout 5 just to capitalise on the Fallout show, that doesn't mean they can't or won't push a 'Remaster' of their earlier Fallout games. 3 and New Vegas could be quite Lucrative and Quicker to 'rush' out too as the 'bulk' of the work is done. Its a Port with all the Voice work, Story, setting etc already done - turn the settings up, increase the res, maybe add some extra Procedurally generated 'density' and maybe RTGI and sell it as a Remaster like Skyrim last gen. Maybe will take some 'time' porting etc, but a LOT less time than building Fallout 5 from scratch, writing a story in a 'new' setting, recording all the Voice lines with 'new' characters, NPC's etc.

A 'remaster' of 3/NV or bringing 1 & 2 to console for the first time could be 'rushed' (by rushed, I just mean given a high priority to get out sooner than planned/expected) rather than compromise a 'new' build just to get it out 'sooner'.

@GuyinPA75 LMAO

As much as I'd love a new Bethesda Fallout game I know it's not possible right now as the games they make are too huge. So I just wish they develop 2 projects simultaneously as game development has become too time consuming of late. And at least find some competent studio to remake F3 and NV in Creation Engine 2.0 to sate our hunger for the time being.

He is right, they don't need to rush out the next fallout just because oje season of a tv show was well received.

People will show up in droves for their landmark releases regardless.

I do wonder if those fallout 3 and oblivion remasters are still happening.

Nobody is saying rush it but don't make us wait as long as we have for another proper elder scrolls Skyrim released in 2011 for god sake that's to long and for me anyways starfield was a terrible waste of time so very boring and bland and above all else buggy!

i think bethesda and todd have ran their course. joke is on microsoft. i have much more respect for obsidian. and that atomfall game, i hope its fallout like and decent. story and characters are important in these games, not base/ship building.

I would love to see more Fallout games, but I am also looking forward to the next Elder Scrolls so I would be ok with Bethesda working on either one of those first. It just so happens to be Elder Scrolls, which again I am fine with. Fallout 76 is actually fantastic now so that will keep me busy for awhile in the Fallout Universe.

I miss TES, Bethesda.

Maybe change the formula too before it gets stale make a third person and change the art style to tap into the younger generation

Yeah there's no need to rush, it's only been 9 years since the last single player installment and the next is likely still another 10 years away.......

@TheSimulator Bethesda games can already be played third person. It's not the feel the games are most famous for but it's there."change the art style to tap into the younger generation" Do we really need every game to be cartoon plasticine with neon violet base colors because "young people" apparently can appreciate nothing else? Are the "younger generation" going to be 12 forever?

...Maybe best not to answer that.

@Medic_alert I think the problem with that is, you expect Bethesda (Buggy as they are) to be a game with a lot of interaction, object,s physics, whatnot, and that's not compatible with "UE5, shiny shiny gfx gfx" where that LoD would force having defined focused, narrow interactions. I don't think super glossy graphics and detail will ever be compatible with the scope of a bethesda game unless they're willing to take a major loss on making it, and we know even moneybags MS isn't going to do that now. They were already taking losses even with the low detail games.

@Medic_alert Maybe, although I think Fallout and it's current popularity probably guarantees their future, though TES is the only one I care about really.

I'm not sure what way to think about it. On one hand what Bethesda does is a very specific kind of game that appeals to a very specific kind of gamer, predominantly on PC. On the other hand that market isn't big enough to pay for the games with modern budgets even without UE5 level graphics (and heck, they already have id working on their engine.)

OTOH if they change to a "modern" (flashy, shallow, streamlined, rigid, similar-to-everything-else) popular, marketable genre, their existing fans won't care about them at all anymore, that crowd wants a world simulation and few companies deliver world simulations.

Bethesda is one more meh game from death by mediocrity, which is a lot slower and more costly than 1 game ruining your reputation. I'd be scared beyond belief if I was any of the smaller devs Microsoft's gotten via larger acquisitions. Because why punish the people who make the mistakes when you can fire devs like Tango Gameworks to make up for some the cost, so no lesson is learned and the process repeats until you're the Disney of the console industry.

God, please just give Fallout to someone else...

@Medic_alert It's an odd way of thinking, surely Bethesda knows that much of their core audience is getting up there in years. I don't think they have Rockstar levels of mass appeal. I'll be near 50 by the time ES VI comes out, and might not live to see FO5.
Sincerely don't understand Bethesdas development philosophy.

@NEStalgia who asked for cartoon ? Most people would much rather resident evil 2 graphics over fallout shoot even assassin creed over fallout

@TheSimulator Every Western developer that seeks to update their art style to suit a younger demographic basically goes into a conference room and says "how can we make this look more like Fortnite". Seems like most games today have the same shiny plasticine textures with a neon-based palette leaning on the purples.

It sounds like you didn't mean "update the graphics for a younger audience", what you really meant was "For the love of Todd, just make Creation Engine less fugly!" right?