Despite reportedly rejecting proposals from the Fallout: New Vegas developer on a potential Elder Scrolls spin-off, Todd Howard and Bethesda Gaming Studios may again outsource projects to a third party like Obsidian Entertainment.
Although Bethesda Gaming Studios’ Todd Howard repeatedly emphasized that The Elder Scrolls 6 is on top of the studio’s timetable, the overwhelming success of the Fallout live-action series on Prime Video meant that fans of that particular franchise are now crying out for their slice of the pie as well.
Many players, expressing their impatience at the timetable governing the next Fallout game’s release, took to X, formerly Twitter. Bethesda has always acknowledged this kind of user input, as Todd Howard revealed in an interview with Kinda Funny Games, where they discussed the delay and potential solutions.
“You know, they do take a long time, and so I think one of the things we’re focused on here is obviously making sure they’re of the highest quality, but also finding ways to increase our output,” the exec explained.
Howard specifically said that, as part of their collaboration with Jonathan Nolan for the TV series, Bethesda had to look back at what they are doing with Fallout as a franchise. This means discussing development status and release dates for games like Fallout 5.
The interviewer then specifically quizzed Howard on doing Fallout spin-offs once again like Fallout: New Vegas with outside developers like Obsidian.
“I can’t speak to things that we’re doing with the franchise in the future, obviously, but New Vegas is a very, very important game to us and our fans,” he answered, but also added that Obsidian “did an incredible job.”
Obsidian’s Chris Avellone revealed last year that Bethesda had declined their proposals to collaborate on a spin-off for The Elder Scrolls, which would’ve bridged The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the untitled Elder Scrolls VI game the same way Fallout: New Vegas did in between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.
Todd Howard had also expressed hesitation in 2021 to outsource Fallout 5, which means any third-party collaboration would only be for spin-off games like Fallout: New Vegas.