Fans of the original Fallout games may be in luck thanks the Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Zenimax Inc, Bethesda’s parent company. The last game in the series, Fallout 76, was poorly received by many fans because it diverged from the series’ previous purely single-player experiences.
However, now Microsoft has several studios under one roof which have worked on the Fallout series or its progenitor series, Wasteland, in different capacities. Between 2018 and 2020 Microsoft acquired inXile Entertainment, Obsidian Entertainment, and Bethesda Game Studios. Now, the Fallout series has been presented with a unique opportunity to return to its roots in a way that many fans of the first two games will likely welcome with open arms.
Wasteland was a single-player open-world RPG originally developed by Interplay Entertainment and published by EA in 1988. The game was set in a world that had been through a nuclear apocalypse, and the studio would later work on the first Fallout game, Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game, as a spiritual successor to Wasteland. The company took the Wasteland format and core setting, while adding in a satirical take on American ‘50s consumerist culture and retro-futurist aesthetics, and defined the franchise’s staple elements.
Fallout 2 would be developed in 1998 by Black Isle Studios, and many of the developers who worked on it would later join Obsidian Entertainment, which later worked on Fallout: New Vegas. The second Fallout was a commercial and critical success, fully establishing Fallout as the successor franchise to Wasteland.
When the Fallout IP was bought by Bethesda, the games became first-person RPGs in the style of The Elder Scrolls while keeping the setting and the broad themes from the first two games. The change was initially met with criticism by many fans of the isometric Fallout games, who felt that the new developer was getting rid of a key element of the first two games by making Fallout 3 first person. However, given the sheer popularity of the franchise today, it’s clear that many considered the genre transition a success.
In terms of Fallout-esque games, the isometric style had fallen to the wayside until Wasteland 2 was successfully crowdfunded by inXile. Wasteland 2 was a critical success and generated $1.5 million in revenue just four days after its release. This in turn helped Obsidian Entertainment’s attempts to return to isometric RPGs in Pillars of Eternity gain traction, with the isometric fantasy RPG releasing the following year.
Since then, both Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity have had successful sequels, though Pillars of Eternity in particular has struggled financially despite its critical success. For this reason, just as Fallout made the change to first-person, the Pillars of Eternity setting will be repurposed for a first-person RPG in the studio’s upcoming game, Avowed. However, the fact that Obsidian, inXile, and Bethesda are now under one roof could mean big things for the isometric format.
Bethesda has allowed third-party developers to work on Fallout before, with 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas developed by many of the original Black Isle Studios developers who had moved on to Obsidian Entertainment. The Bethesda-Obsidian New Vegas controversy that arose afterward slightly damaged the possibility of further collaboration in the future, with Obsidian missing out on a significant bonus by one Metacritic point and being forced to shut down its next project as a result.
However, it is possible that Bethesda could now allow inXile to develop a Fallout game in the isometric format again, helping the series return to its roots after the disappointing reception of Fallout 76. A Fallout game developed by inXile could see the series return to its clearer anti-capitalist themes and could mark a revival of interest in the franchise which would benefit both inXile and Bethesda. With Bethesda and/or Microsoft bankrolling the project, inXile wouldn’t have to worry about gaining crowd funding in order to make a new isometric Fallout happen, which could help overcome some of the economic anxieties if the game returns to the original format from Fallout 1 and Fallout 2.
It’s also possible that some of the original Interplay and Black Isle Studios developers who now work at inXile and Obsidian could work together on the project, which would be very exciting for a lot of Fallout fans. It would be particularly exciting for those who hope that Bethesda’s acquisition by Microsoft could lead to Obsidian’s involvement in a sequel to Fallout: New Vegas. The big question obviously becomes whether or not Bethesda would be willing for this to happen; after all, it has mentioned Fallout 5 in the past. However, there’s another detail that should be taken into consideration.
For the first time in 25 years, Bethesda is developing a new IP, Starfield, for the next-gen consoles. The game is set to be a sci-fi RPG that leaked screenshots suggest could include elements found in both Mass Effect and No Man’s Sky. This could make it more likely that older franchises like Fallout could be outsourced to third-party developers like Obsidian or inXile while the studio that owns the property experiments with new settings.
With Wasteland’s revival, it remains to be seen if inXile would be interested in developing a Fallout game at all at this point, and whether or not either inXile or Obsidian would be willing to take a look back. This means the popularity of the format should be taken into consideration, as well as the popularity of the franchise, and that makes one thing clear: a new Fallout game with more of the original devs involved would certainly gain a lot of attention.
No new Fallout game has been announced.
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