While a recent report has indicated that Bethesda is unlikely to tap into another studio to work on a new entry on one of its major IPs, be it Fallout or The Elder Scrolls, former developer for the company, Jonah Lobe, has expressed a contrary belief. In a discussion alongside other Fallout developers on the Kiwi Talkz channel, Lobe said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Fallout 5 were developed by another studio. Especially since Bethesda itself has its hands full with the development of The Elder Scrolls 6.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Bethesda gave Fallout 5 to a different production studio,” he said. “I think that they’re doing more and more of that already, they’re bigger and bigger than ever. I feel like The Elder Scrolls 6, the expectations are already beyond the screen here, and they already have their hands full with that.”
Former senior designer on Bethesda’s Fallout games, Bruce Nesmith, agreed with Lobe, noting that Bethesda would benefit quite a bit if it were to ship a brand new entry in the franchise while Amazon’s live-action adaptation is still running.
“I wasn’t necessarily with you before, but when you say that, I totally agree,” he said. “Having the game come out while the show is either still running, or still very fresh, would be a huge advantage.”
Giant Bomb founder and renowned games journalist Jeff Gerstmann had noted on his own podcast earlier this month that Bethesda is more likely to keep new entries in its main franchises completely in-house. This means that the company is also likelier to simply focus on growing its development teams rather than contracting an external studio.
“I think Todd Howard and the team probably have a pretty firm grasp of what they want to do with those specific franchises, and instead of assigning that stuff to another team, it would be more likely for them to staff up at Bethesda Game Studios to make sure that they have what they need to get those games done,” he said. Interestingly, he also noted that there was another Fallout game being developed by a Microsoft-owned studio. However, this project has ultimately been cancelled.
“There was a Fallout thing in development at another Microsoft-owned studio that I think is no longer going to see the light of day,” he said. “But yeah, they will probably not do the remakes. I think those have been outsourced to others, like the Fallout 3 thing, which I think has been outsourced to an external studio. But, you know, new games will probably come from that brain trust, and I think that they probably will continue to have a pretty firm grasp on that.”
Bethesda farming out remasters of its older games to other studios shouldn’t come as any surprise, since the company worked with Virtuos for the development of last year’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. Just last month, creative director Todd Howard also noted that, while he has “softened on the whole remaster thing,” he continues to be “anti-remake.”
“I respect the other ones out there, but I really think the age of a game is part of what it is and its personality and what it represented when it came out,” he said.
