Amazon’s Fallout series reminded us how popular the post-apocalyptic series is. After the premiere, we saw millions of interested players, both new and old, flock to the games. Fallout 4 has reached a peak not seen in years, and even Fallout 76 is basking in its glory. It’s clear that Microsoft and Bethesda see the hype and are looking to the future. And Todd Howard’s team will be working on Fallout 5 after TES 6. But what if we get something unexpected instead? A spin-off inspired by the original games in the series.
Since Bethesda became the owner of Fallout, we have already seen 4 games that are more like role-playing shooters – Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. There was also Fallout Shelter and board games. Fallout on the Pillars of Eternity engine could easily fit into this library, especially since Obsidian does too. owned by Microsoft.
Given the hype and importance of maintaining the franchise, now is the perfect time for another Fallout CRPG.
Baldur’s Gate 3 paved the way for this idea to be realized. This fantasy RPG took the gaming public by storm, winning a ton of major Game of the Year awards at GDC, DICE, and The Game Awards. And this is a good motivation for those developers who are not sure that CRPGs are in demand today.
Playing the original Fallout games today means having to deal with outdated controls and graphics to get to the juicy core that built the franchise. But it was in these games that the iconic environment was created, all the basics of this fascinating universe were presented. Bethesda took the reins with Fallout 3 and radically changed the way Fallout is presented to players, a move that has been fruitful for many years.
But the other side of the coin is that in the process of transition we lost some of the special sauce that we later tried to restore in the Wasteland series. It turned out very well, but still not Fallout.
Who should we hand over a potential Fallout spin-off with a classic isometric view? There is the already mentioned Obsidian, with an engine and PoE developments. This sounds like an obvious option, but they already have a lot of work to do right now. There’s also InXile, the creators of Wasteland, who might be best suited to develop a modern Fallout CRPG. But now the studio is occupied by Clockwork Revolution.
There’s also Owlcat Games. The recently released Rogue Trader came out very well and the studio clearly demonstrated that it can take an existing IP and make a quality spin-off based on it. These guys could make something like a modern Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.
But will Bethesda allow someone else to take on the development of Fallout? There is a feeling that Todd Howard is not eager to hand over supervision of the development of this universe to someone else. On the other hand, the company is owned by Microsoft, and if Phil Spencer wants a Fallout CRPG spin-off, he’ll get it.