Bethesda Game Studios issued a statement last Friday, July 17, announcing the future of its franchises and the studio. Focusing in particular on Fallout, but also addressing what’s next for The Elder Scrolls and Starfield, they wanted to clarify what’s in store for them after the mass layoffs at Microsoft. Wanting to lay out a clear roadmap now that 379 people have been laid off at ZeniMax, Bethesda’s parent company. 213 of those people from Bethesda.
Fallout becomes the flagship franchise
What they’ve wanted to make clear is that Fallout is going to be their main focus in the years to come. They’re already working on remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, although they haven’t given dates for either one. Likewise, they’ve confirmed that Obsidian is working on a new Fallout installment separate from the next mainline Fallout game, which has been in development for at least two years. At the same time, the next Fallout installment, Fallout 5, has now entered pre-production, which means it will still take at least five or six years of development before it sees the light of day.
They’ve also confirmed that before continuing with the third season of Fallout they will make a series specifically about Fallout Shelter, the popular mobile game. This suggests that the third season of Fallout could be inspired by the events of Obsidian’s new game, apparently to buy time until the third season and the game are released simultaneously.
They’ve also announced that they will continue working on Starplayer and that they’re in the process of developing the third version of their engine, the Creation Engine. This new version, Creation Engine 3, is what they’ll use for both Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6, which was announced in 2018 and for which they still have no release date or any new details to share. Which is why it seems we’ll still have to wait a long time to hear news about it.
