Bethesda Game Studios has confirmed that Fallout 5 exists, which is good news for anyone who has been waiting since Fallout 4 and awkward timing for the people watching Microsoft’s gaming division cut staff.
The studio said it has a slate of projects in development, including the next mainline Fallout, a new Fallout game at Obsidian Entertainment, and remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. Bethesda director Todd Howard described Fallout 5 as a “long-range destination” and said the project is in preproduction, so this is not a launch-window announcement. It is a marker on a whiteboard.
The announcement comes while Xbox is in what company leadership has called a reset. Microsoft’s gaming division is laying off about 3,200 employees over the next year, with cuts affecting studios including id Software, Obsidian Entertainment, and Bethesda Game Studios itself. ZeniMax employees also held a rally in Maryland this week to protest the layoffs, according to Aftermath.
Fallout is back on the board, barely
Howard said Bethesda is putting more investment into its established worlds, giving creators a bigger role in player experiences, and bringing teams closer together so games can ship sooner and be supported for longer. That is the company line. The practical read is simpler: Microsoft wants its expensive studios to produce more from the franchises people already recognize.
There are no gameplay details, platforms, release dates, or story information for Fallout 5. Bethesda’s description of the game as being in preproduction means the studio is still in the planning phase, before the full production grind where most of the game gets built. For players, that means the confirmation changes the official status of Fallout 5, but not the wait.
The gap is already long. Fallout 4 launched more than a decade ago as the last mainline entry in the series. Since then, Bethesda has kept the franchise alive through Fallout 76, its online spinoff, and Amazon’s live-action Fallout series.
Obsidian gets another Fallout project
Howard also said Obsidian Entertainment is working on a new Fallout game. Obsidian developed Fallout: New Vegas, the 2010 entry that still has the kind of fanbase publishers usually pretend they can manufacture. Howard did not give a title, release window, or scope, saying only that more details would come later.
Bethesda also said remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas are in development. Neither has a release date.
The update included The Elder Scrolls VI, which Bethesda announced in 2018 and has mostly kept behind glass since. Howard said that game is Bethesda’s main development focus and that most of the team is working on it. He also said it will use the same technology platform as Fallout 5, and that the studio is playing it every day.
Howard added that Starfield remains part of Bethesda’s future, though he did not announce a new release tied to it.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has previously said the division would focus more on its strongest franchises, with a stated goal of becoming one of the few companies entertaining more than a billion people each day. Bethesda fits that plan neatly. Microsoft bought ZeniMax, Bethesda’s parent company, for $7.5 billion in 2021. Now, after layoffs and internal disruption, Xbox is pointing at Fallout and Elder Scrolls as proof that the machine is still running. The machine may be running, but a lot of people are getting pushed out of the room while it does.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
