Back in June 2022, Bethesda's Todd Howard confirmed that Fallout 5 will be Bethesda Game Studios' next game after The Elder Scrolls 6. But with the success of Prime Video's Fallout television show, just about everyone is clamoring for more Fallout.
While previously released games in the franchise have seen an uptick in players, including the most recent release Fallout 76, there are still many who would like to see the next mainline game in the series fast-tracked by Bethesda. Speaking to YouTuber MrMattyPlays, Howard said there are no plans to rush out a new mainline Fallout game. For now, the developer is focused on continuing to support Fallout 76.
"For other Fallout games in the future, you know obviously I can't talk about those right now but I would say sort of rushing through them or we need to get stuff out that is different than the work we're doing in 76, you know we don't feel like we need to rush any of that you know right now," Howard said.
"The Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling," he continued. "[I] totally get the desire for a new kind of mainline single-player game. Look, those things take time. I don't think it's bad for people to miss things. We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we're doing in a franchise, whether it's Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loved these franchises as much as we do."
Even before the success of Prime Video's show, Fallout was one of Bethesda's most popular video game series. The last mainline installment was Fallout 4, which was released nearly 10 years ago in 2015.
Since then, there have been a couple of spin-offs, such as the Fallout Shelter mobile game in 2015 and the multiplayer-focused Fallout 76 in 2018. Fallout 76 took the series in a totally new direction by focusing entirely on multiplayer. In fact, there were no human non-playable characters in the game when it first launched.
For a franchise that focused on role-playing, not being able to interact with human NPCs was obviously the first mistake. On top of this, the game was released in an unplayable state, marred by bugs and glitches.
To Bethesda's credit, they stuck with it and have drastically improved the game through post-launch updates and expansions. They've since added more human NPCs and an abundance of story-driven quests that make it feel much more in line with previous games in the series. Bethesda also just launched its newest expansion, Skyline Valley, earlier this month.
Back in June of last year, Xbox's Phil Spencer confirmed that The Elder Scrolls 6, which is Bethesda's main focus right now (in addition to Starfield and Fallout 76 expansions), is still "five plus years away." Documents released as part of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard indicated that the game isn't expected until "2026 or later." This could mean that any new Fallout mainline game may not arrive until closer to 2030. Let's hope Fallout 76 and Prime Video's series can keep fans entertained for that long.