Well I think Obsidian will be better able to do a Fallout game than Bethesda, but oof yeah maybe fire Emil and Todd, if you want to start fixing Bethesda’s problems.
See the primary problem with Bethesda is that its leadership are incompetent hacks that haven’t had a new idea muchless a good idea in a decade, and they’ve have promoted a hugbox culture with 0 accountability anywhere.
Thats how something like FO76 and Starfield and the FO4 update that broke everything happen.
In case anyone is unaware:
https://gamingpromax.com/obsidian-new-fallout-game-confirmed-bethesda-2026/
Yeah, Asha Sharma told Obsidian to drop basically everything they were doing, and now they’re tasked with making another Fallout game.
Bethesda is also tasked with making a new Fallout game. Well, more accurately, they’ve been tasked with that for years, got a head start.
… only one of these studios is currently publically pissing and shitting themselves over how difficult that will be.
And its not Obsidian. Haven’t heard much from them.
Probably because they are busy, you know, working.
To be fair, the article makes it sound like Obsidian is going to be doing with Fallout 4 what they did with Fallout 3/NV - use the existing game engine to create an entirely new game - versus what Bethesda is doing, which is updating the whole system to Fallout 5, which presumably would be sharing some work with ESVI.
One of those things would actually be more difficult than the other, though I’d also suspect that Microsoft’s atitude here is driven by Bethesda’s largesse when it comes to ESVI. It’s been discussed to death but a single non-trailer on your biggest tentpole in 10 years in favor of your boss’ seriously mid space game is certainly a… decision.
Well the last time Obsidian got their hands on the then current Creation Engine, they hot rodded it and got it to do things that Bethesda had stated they wanted to be able to do but couldn’t figure out how to do.
What would a wholly updated FO5 even… have be different? What are the systems that would be reworked?
No one has any idea because no one has mentioned anything at that level of detail, at all, that I’m aware of.
Also what, like, Bethesda is going to somehow make the Creation Engine not a giant pile of shit, with now 15 more years of acculumated technical debt from never doing a full ground up rebuild… ?
Anyway my suspicion is that MSFT is generally pissed at Bethesda for spending stupendous amounts of money over the last decade and a half, making basically one decent game that was a commercial success, one maybe commerical success that was a PR disaster, and then a combo PR+commercial disaster.
That, all in addition to FO5 and ES VI are as best we can tell literally just dreams, concepts of a plan.
Sharma’s job is to make Xbox as profitable as it can be, partially to stem the damage from Xbox itself’s fuckups over the last decade, Spencer’s ‘buy every IP’ plan only works if that leads to actually profitable games…
… but Sharma also has to make Xbox as profitable as it can be to cover for the incredible amounts of money MSFT has spent on AI/LLMs, Windows itself going to shit, mass abandonment of Windows and Windows enterprise software thats been going on in Europe since Trump Round 2 started.
Also what, like, Bethesda is going to somehow make the Creation Engine not a giant pile of shit, with now 15 more years of acculumated technical debt from never doing a full ground up rebuild… ?
We’ve been saying this since Morrowind: Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Fallout NV, Fallout 4 - Gamebryo sucks, what are they going to do to this wheezing trash heap etc etc - and every time they do the same thing: update the graphics and gameplay marginally, introduce new elements (dual wielding magic, radiant quests, settlement building, whatever) release it as the “new” version (outrageously buggy ofc) and largely let the mod community fix it. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that’s probably what FO5 and ESVI will also do, it’s the path of least resistance and nobody will be bringing out their surprised Pikachu faces.
I don’t really care all that much because I like the games, none more than FONV, so I’d be happy for Obsidian to hot rod FO4 into something equally interesting.
Tbh I don’t think obsidian is that good anymore either.
Tbf I agree that their more recent games haven’t been great… but I do think they are both more lean as a studio, and their recent games have been of better quality than Bethesda’s recent slop.
Meanwhile questline successfully made a great [not elder scrolls] game.
Also, obsidian made the best fallout game.
I’m happy for bethesda that skyrim was such a success but I think the competition is outperforming themC-suite staff: what do you mean? They’re just meat tools. One tool is the same as any other tool. See this is why I make the big bucks. I am have much smart brain.
Wow, and the “quality level” was already pretty bad
This was my first thought. If what we’ve been getting out of Bethesda is the good stuff, I’m afraid for what comes next.
Greed.
Don’t call them “budget cuts” when they’re performed by entirely profitable companies. Call it what it is, rampant greed.
Maybe they should have thought about that instead of (poorly) porting the same 2 games to every electronic device on earth. Or selling out to Microsoft.
Ok but how is this writer using the word “bestest” unironically in the first paragraph. Am I losing my mind?
It’s RPS, their tone is usually anything but serious.
Yeah, i don’t think bethesda have to worry about things getting worse.
