Even after Fallout 4, many fans still asking for an Obsidian developed Fallout

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Korin

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Kotaku wrote an interesting article about the fandom behind Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas in the face of Bethesda's release of Fallout 4. Seems many fans are still looking for Obsidian to do more with the Fallout franchise, something many people on NMA can relate to:

Picture this. You spend years putting together a massive, ambitious RPG. After countless hours of hard work, you release your baby out into the public. Curious to see what people think, you start looking around the internet...only to see a small but vocal chunk of your fanbase wishing someone else had made your game.

That’s been the story with Fallout 4 since its release back in November. Bethesda made the game, but plenty of people are wishing Obsidian Entertainment had made it in their place.
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..."It sometimes seems as though you can’t talk about Fallout 4 without having someone start talking about how good New Vegas is, how much they wish Obsidian, rather than Bethesda, handled modern Fallout games. It’s in every comments section for the Fallout 4 articles we post, I see it on Reddit a whole lot, and I’ve been emailed petitions about Obsidian and future Fallout games many, many times."
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Kotaku mentions and as many know the Obsidian team are enthusiastic about the chance to make another Fallout and have even noted that New Orleans would be an 'interesting' place as a setting though as far as we are aware there has been no discussion about this happening with Bethesda.

I myself find New Vegas to be holding up with age much better with age and wishing Bethesda had taken note from the love and attention to detail Obsidian had taken with New Vegas.

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Ah, Kotaku again. Everytime they post an article I'm reminded quickly that they're really just a blog more than they are a gaming news site. Especially when some of the "journalists" on there don't fully comprehend what they're actually writing about. They do provide a good update on small parts of gaming in Japan and the indie industry I usually wouldn't notice, but that's about the total of the good things they do. Patricia Hernandez in this instance is trying very hard to look like she understands the whole Fallout escapade.

Also, they wrote this. Which I definitely swear was how some people discovered NMA. Not me.

But enough bashing. This article, while vague and indefinite, does make a good point that NMA has gone over many times. Obsidian, better writing, better quest design, better experience as a whole, Fallout 4 only liked because it has general appeal and good marketing, etcetera, etcetera.

Patricia Hernandez said:
Personally, I don’t want to get too swept up in the idea of a game that may never exist. Something about that feels cruel to Bethesda, and makes it easy to lose sight of the many things Bethesda’s Fallout games have excelled at, like competent shooter mechanics, a lush, lively world that’s fun to explore, and a intensely addictive settlement system that lets us customize things to our own liking.
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:lmao:

This is the fun bit. Ask me a year ago, maybe I would've said exactly this.

But when you really look into it the pro-Obsidian part of the fanbase can barely make dent in Bethesda's decision making machine. Sadly, there's not many things of note that we could do to get Bethesda's attention, so the entire argument is rendered moot simply because it is out of our hands.
 
I'd hope Bethesda notices that, too, and maybe tries to learn from it... But I fear that their sales numbers are high enough that they don't have to care.
Although, given the Metacritic ratings they might actually start to feel that maybe their formula is getting old.
 
Let's hope that Bethesda approaches them for a new Fallout game, and Obsidian doesn't have any unannounced title planned, which they might have if Sawyer's twitter post with the Louisiana field notes is a tease for such. As far as we know, they only have The White March Part 2 for PoE releasing in February and the tank MMO that's in open beta. It's wishful thinking, but if they don't have any new title planned, then they would have time to begin work on a new Fallout game, and it could be announced before or during this summer.
 
Hassknecht said:
I'd hope Bethesda notices that, too, and maybe tries to learn from it... But I fear that their sales numbers are high enough that they don't have to care.
Although, given the Metacritic ratings they might actually start to feel that maybe their formula is getting old.
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They can't be blind to the fact that the game sold as well as it did based on hype and brand recognition. As for Obsidian I wish they would just do an original post apocalyptic IP of their own, then we wouldn't need to wonder if the BGS overlords will throw fans of real RPG's a bone. Don't get me wrong I would love an obsidian fallout again, but BGS isn't doing their image any favors letting them show the consumer what a real ARPG looks like.
 
Obsidian is not going to get to do another Fallout, because Fallout 4 is at 84 on Metacritic for PC right now, and they won't risk Obsidian getting more than that :D
 
I also wouldn't be surprised at all if a new Obsidian made Fallout gets more GotY awards than Fallout 4 did.
 
GOTY awards are shit, mostly because they are given out by people on the pocket of the big Developers.

But it's nice for this change on the tides, even tho it wasn't full blown hated, the reception for FO4 has been incredibly lukewarm for a AAA overhyped game and the opinion of "New Vegas was better" is echoing more nowadays.
 
Walpknut said:
GOTY awards are shit, mostly because they are given out by people on the pocket of the big Developers.

But it's nice for this change on the tides, even tho it wasn't full blown hated, the reception for FO4 has been incredibly lukewarm for a AAA overhyped game and the opinion of "New Vegas was better" is echoing more nowadays.
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Even as much as I liked Fallout 3 when I first played it Fallout 4 left me with a "meh" feeling and New Vegas has aged much better. Replaying Fallout 3 is cringe-y in a lot of places while I find NV continues to be objectively interesting and well written.
 
I'd rather Obsidian work on their own IP's than that they have to "make do" with Bethesda's shit. Fallout New Vegas surpassed the originals in some ways but it also could not live up to them in other ways and was severely held back by Bethesda's designs. Do I want to see that again but with Fallout 4? Not really. Would I like to see Obsidian kickstart a new IP or do a sequel to PoT? Absolutely.

Obsidian can only work on so much at any given time and I'd rather they work on something that is going to be good rather than something that is just "the best out of a bad situation" which is pretty much what FNV was. Fallout's future is pretty much dead to me. Why try to resuscitate the corpse so it can just couch up blood violently before it dies again?

I don't like wasted development. Anything within gaming requires time, budget and resources and they are all finite. I'd rather they go towards something that I know I'll enjoy than something I have to put up with just because it is Fallout.

I mean, do you really think Obsidian will be allowed to retcon Bethesda's retcons? Do you really think they'll be given free reign over how to design the game so it'll be proper RPG again? Do you really think that they will even be given the time they need to rebuild the shit Bethesda spewed out? Do you even think that they 'can' make it work with Bethesda's design for Fallout 4?

The only thing that could chance my mind would be if Bethesda flat out said that they will allow Obsidian to create whatever kind of Fallout game they want to (cRPG, Bethesda-type, real time strategy, whatever) and they are allowed free reign over what they want to do. I doubt that'd happen though.

I already have to put up with fucking feral ghouls in FNV. I already have to put up with the Wattz series dropping off the face of the earth and being replaced with the brick of a weapon called the AER series. I already have to put up with Radscorpions turning into these gigantic tanks of health.

So another game where I have to put up with more shit like this? No thanks.

Give me a call when Obsidian decides to kickstart their next RPG project and when they're done with the whole Armored Warfare crap.
 
I get that this has to be weird for the folks who work at Bethesda, since they're all human beings who want to put out the best games they can subject to the constraints they're working under, but I think they have to also sort of realize that Fallout is a thing they own because they bought it, not a thing they own because they created it. Being the owner, but not the creator, of something has to sort of insulate you from some of this stuff.

I mean, I don't think Scott Snyder would get all that upset if he heard someone saying "Man, I wish Grant Morrison were writing Batman again" because though he's the current steward of the caped crusader, Scott Snyder is not the only person who has written Batman, and a lot of other people have written that comic book extremely well over the decades and liking one person's work more than someone else's isn't necessarily an indictment of anybody.
 
I think even gamers who play mostly mainstream games with little complexity are intrigued when a well-designed title comes along and are justifiably miffed that this is such a rarity. I think New Vegas opened a lot of people's eyes, so to speak. And The Witcher 3 probably helped the mellow response to Fallout 4 because it raised the bar.
 
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Practicat said:
I also wouldn't be surprised at all if a new Obsidian made Fallout gets more GotY awards than Fallout 4 did.
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It would be next to impossible for a Fallout made by Obsidian to reach GotY status. Simply because Obsidian makes the "new" Fallout after Bethesda.

Fallout 3 came in 2008, New Vegas in 2010. Reviewers compared it directly to Fallout 3, with things like physics and graphics, and bugs. It's hard to improve those three things when: a) The game is rushed, and b) You are working on what is already there, instead of making a new game yourself, like Fallout 4 is.

So, sadly, no matter how much of an improvement may Obsidian's Fallouts be to Bethesda's, reviewers will always judge them with the "it's very similar to its antecessor, despite the overall improvement".

Obsidian would literally have to be given priority in making the next-gen (or as closest to next-gen) Fallout to reach GotY status, otherwise, the awards will always go to Bethesda, and the kudos will go to Obsidian.
 
I mean, do you really think Obsidian will be allowed to retcon Bethesda's retcons?
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New Vegas never retcon anything from 3. The only thing I can remember that connects the two are ED-E and giving the plasma rifle a backstory
 
mrchaos said:
New Vegas never retcon anything from 3. The only thing I can remember that connects the two are ED-E and giving the plasma rifle a backstory
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Yeah, exactly, so Obsidian has to abide by whatever Bethesda's written into the lore. So if they want to, oh I dunno, get rid of ferals then they can't. Obsidian would be under Bethesda's thumb on what can and can't go into the lore. I already have to make excuses for FNV and headcanon shit to make sense of certain things and well, I don't want another game where I have to do that. If there's to be any Fallout game then I'd rather it be something I don't have to comb through to find the inconsistencies. One where I can just sit back and accept it wholesale.

I could do that with a new IP from Obsidian, and I could probably do that with a PoT sequel/prequel/equal. But a Fallout game published by Bethesda? I very much doubt it.

And hell, if I got the chance to do a Fallout game I wouldn't give a rats ass about Bethesda's retcons and I'd ignore them completely, essentially retconning the retcon.

I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of the flame of passion for Fallout's future being reignited just to blow up in my face. I'd rather Fallout just stay dead and throw rocks at Bethesda while they parade around its cadaver.
 
These things Obsidian has to abide can still work with. In NV the feral ghouls are limited to a few specific location (repcon, camp searchlight), unlike 3 and 4 where half the location are zombie shooting galleries.
 
Practicat said:
I also wouldn't be surprised at all if a new Obsidian made Fallout gets more GotY awards than Fallout 4 did.
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GOTY awards don't mean shit but as for the answer to your post, that wouldn't be hard to do considering Fallout 4 didn't get any.

I do think in my honest opinion that Obsidian is better off developing a new original post-apocalyptic IP that cares about things like lore consistency and that can make Bethesdian Fallouts look like a joke(oh wait they're already jokes). One of the many upsides to that is not having to worry about the Bethesda overlords giving stupid restrictions to them resulting in a game that could've been done without the silly FPS stuff and without some ancient engine.
 
Hassknecht said:
I'd hope Bethesda notices that, too, and maybe tries to learn from it... But I fear that their sales numbers are high enough that they don't have to care.
Although, given the Metacritic ratings they might actually start to feel that maybe their formula is getting old.
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A spiteful part me hopes that they don't learn and that they drive their ship to ground.
I don't want them to learn to program their engine competently or stop relying on the modding community. And then I want them to alienate even their modding community. I want them to really screw the pooch so they can't continue chasing trends by mixing Borderlands+Minecraft+Call of Duty or whatever other cynical focus-tested thing is going to sell. I want them to do everything possible to alienate their current fans and undermine any loyalty or goodwill they have left.
I don't want a Fallout 5.
 
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