Obsidian was behind Fallout: New Vegas, the follow-up to Fallout 3, which is often regarded as the best game in the franchise, at least in its modern rendition. A lot of that comes down to its exceptionally strong writing and great quests, which make it, in many ways, the truest 3D realization of the original Fallout games that we have received. Which makes sense in its own way, since Obsidian is made up, in large part, by those same folks who brought us Fallout and Fallout 2 to begin with.
Many fans have been hoping for a follow-up from Obsidian as a result, especially since Bethesda is widely perceived to have dropped the ball with Fallout 4. That expectation may have gone up even more when recently, Bethesda said that they wouldn’t be against outsourcing one of their games in the future again. However, a new Fallout game from Obsidian may not happen.
Responding to a fan on Twitter, Obsidian stated that the likelihood of their working on a new Fallout game is “very doubtful”. Which is a shame, especially because Bethesda’s next Fallout game is Fallout 76, a multiplayer shooter that doesn’t even have NPCs (at least of the human variety), let alone the kind of finely sculpted dialog that has won New Vegas legions of fans everywhere.
On the other hand, maybe this is because Obsidian will soon reportedly be bought out by Microsoft, and won’t be able to work on third party projects from there on…