If you were anticipating a Fallout 5 announcement, it might be time to rethink that dream for now as Bethesda Games Studios director, Todd Howard has revealed the fifth mainline Fallout game isn’t the developer’s focus right now.
During a recent episode of IGN Unfiltered, Howard dived into many topics including Bethesda Games Studios’ current/upcoming project and more importantly the status of Fallout 5. In addition, the game director gave his thoughts on if Fallout could be handled by an external developer with the studios being pretty busy with other projects.
“I don’t see… Look, Fallout’s really part of our DNA here. We’ve worked with other people from time to time – I can’t say what’s gonna happen. You know, we have a one-pager on Fallout 5, what we want to do,” Howard said during a recent episode of IGN Unfiltered.
For anyone unaware, a one-pager is basically a document that shows off a basic outline of a game’s concept. Howard is basically saying Fallout 5 development hasn’t gone past a one-pager and the game is going to take a while. It honestly sounds like Howard is being truthful as Bethesda has plans beyond Starfield which is releasing exactly a year from tomorrow if it doesn’t suffer any delays anyway.
After development wraps up on that game, the studio is going all-in on Elder Scrolls VI which is reportedly in the early stages so it might take years for that game to come out. By the time it does in 2025 possibly, a Bethesda-developed Fallout 5 might release sometime near the end of the decade, which might be a time when we’re talking or already have new console hardware.
Howard also commented on Bethesda Games Studio’s commitment to single-player games saying that they are “Absolutely” committed and that “It’s part of who we are, it’s what we love about games.” Howard goes on to point toward Fallout 76, while being a big multiplayer experiment for the studio, its most recent ‘Wastelanders’ expansion was more focused on single-player play.
“With Fallout 76, once we added Wastelanders and that kind of questing stuff, the amount of people that want to play it as a solo experience is very, very strong,” Howard said.
