Fallout 4 announcement might still take a while

[WorstUsernameEver]

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has talked with Todd Howard about the possibility of a Fallout 4 announcement in the near future. Unsurprisingly, Howard isn't particularly willing to give specifics, but it seems it might take a while longer before we hear about the title:

“We don’t [have a timeframe for our next game announcement],” he said, “but I think it’s gonna be a while.”

“We’ve gotten fairly used to all the questions and curiosity over the years. Everyone wants information. Right now, we’re just trying to figure out which of our ideas are going to stick and finding an appropriate time to talk about it.”​

So there you have it, as usual Bethesda is taking its time with announcements. Does it mean that they offloaded Fallout 4 to Obsidian? Most likely not. Does that actually mean Bethesda hasn't figured out what to do with the title and their main team is too busy helping on The Elder Scrolls Online? Hardly, and I was a bit surprised to see that suggestion in the article's comments. There's ample evidence the game is in production, and Bethesda made it clear Fallout 3 wasn't a one-off back during its development so I really doubt their new title is a new IP.

Moving aside from Fallout 4 for a second, this other snippet implies Bethesda might put more energy into their PC ports in the future:

“PC is resurgent,” enthused Howard. “Skyrim did better than we’ve ever done on PC by a large, large number. And that’s where the mods are. That feeds the game for a long time. And it’s exciting that the new consoles are very PC-like. That opens up avenues for us going forward to do things that we’ve wanted to do in the past. There are kind of random ideas we’re working on right now, and it’s like, ‘Wow, I think there’s potential here to do some really cool stuff.’”​

 

[Faceless Stranger]

I'm leaning towards an Elder Scrolls reboot, since Kirkbride's new C0dec comic pretty much points to that and Todd has mentioned his desire to make one.

As for Fallout, I'll remain cautiously optimistic. I hope that Bethesda might've learned a few things from New Vegas, and will take Obsidian's method into consideration when they make another game.

main team is too busy helping on The Elder Scrolls Online

Do we know how many are working with Zenimax? I was under the impression it was a completely different team seeing as how Bethesda is starting to distance itself from that abortion of an MMO.

 

[FearMonkey]

If they need the time to actually do Fallout 4 right, then they can take all the time they need. I've got plenty of games to play in the meantime.

 

[Jabberwok]

If they need the time to actually do Fallout 4 right, then they can take all the time they need. I've got plenty of games to play in the meantime.

I'll second that.

 

[FalloutTroll]

Dammit :/

 

[BonusWaffle]

This is good news, I hope it will be a rich and content heavy game. I also hope that they design it more like fallout new vegas and make more paths for each quest instead of just massing a lot of generic quests like skyrim.

 

[Taskeen]

Man the news for that game is a giant circle.

Could care less, Fallout Fo... I mean Wasteland 2 will be out before then, the Isometric Strategy Fallout game I've been waiting for.

Fallout Furst Purson VATS Todd "Bro" Howard 4 on that crappy Gamebryo engine can take a hike.

 

[Gaspard]

With all the Kickstarters lately I've gotten used to transparent development and open discussions with the devs. In that light I'm not intrigued by all that smoke, mirrors, cliffhangers etc. But Beth is running a business first, making good art second, so I'm not entirely surprised about this news (or even hoping for a better sequel than what FO3 was like, for that matter...)

 

[.Pixote.]

The hype around Beths games is greater than the actual game, funny that. Secrecy plays its part...

 

[Gaspard]

Of course secrecy plays its part, but here marketing and business diverge from making a good game. When making money, quality of the product is secondary to the quality of hype and PR.

 

[valcik]

“PC is resurgent,” enthused Howard. “Skyrim did better than we’ve ever done on PC by a large, large number. [...] There are kind of random ideas we’re working on right now, and it’s like, ‘Wow, I think there’s potential here to do some really cool stuff.’”

Yeah, Todd. Cool stuff is what matters the most! That's why I'm leaving a link to some cool fan-art here. The Pip-boy scrolls, Fallrim, Dovaultkin!
http://morkou.deviantart.com/art/Dovaultkin-287844489

 

[Crni Vuk]

the bigger issue in my opinion is their way how they approach games like RPGs in the first place.

I have the feeling they really go on those like its a shooter, a rollercoaster of action first and the parts that might define a role playing game come later. Todd explained it very often by him self I believe. They go as soon as possible from the bain storming to the production stage.

I can really imagine how they sitt for a couple of weeks in their meetings, juggling with concepts, ideas till the whole room is filled with empty coffee mugs and sketches and drafts of all kind of crazy and great stuff. It would explain in my opinion the incoherent writting style for example. Brainstorming stuff together is just half of the work, probably not even half of it. To decide what kind of common theme you should chose and how to keep the whole project coherent is important as well. In such situations you sometimes have to throw out even really great ideas, simply because its impossible or very difficiult to squeze them in. Just saying, for me Fallout 3 always felt like some kind of amusemnt park where it doesnt matter what you do as long igs "cool an fun an shit!". But questions like, how it ties it self in to the theme of the world? The story? Does it make even sense to have a cave full of children next to a radiated base full of men-eating super mutants? Would the BoS help someone, even if he slaughtered all of their members who are not "unkillable"? What are the motivations of Tenn Penny? And those are just the stuff I remember on top of my head, F3 has been discussed to death here.

I think it is fair to assume that Fallout 4 will be probably better, just as how Skyrim was in many ways some improvement over Oblivion. At least from the visual side. Skyrim at least felt a lot more coherent. But at the end of the day Skyrim wasted a lot of potential as far as role playing goes. And I dont expect Fallout 4 to be anything else then a rollercoaster again. Just with guns, instead of swords.

 

[Akratus]

Bethesda's biggest problem is the planning and conceptual stage. I hope they take as much time as possible.

 

[fred2]

I'm leaning towards an Elder Scrolls reboot, since Kirkbride's new C0dec comic pretty much points to that and Todd has mentioned his desire to make one.

I doubt that. IMO after Skyrim it either FO4 or a new title, to avoid IP saturation. I think that just like with simcity4, where back then with the amount of content moders made, it would have been extremely hard for EA to develop a game that wouldn't be slaughtered by fans, so they changed title(target audience) I don't Obsidian can do more of that so they will likely work on another title while this game age, and revisit their IPs with "next gen".

As for Fallout, I'll remain cautiously optimistic. I hope that Bethesda might've learned a few things from New Vegas, and will take Obsidian's method into consideration when they make another game.

They might, but don't expect for them to bail on the casual crowd, also IMO its more likely they will learn from skyrim..

With all the Kickstarters lately I've gotten used to transparent development and open discussions with the devs. In that light I'm not intrigued by all that smoke, mirrors, cliffhangers etc. But Beth is running a business first, making good art second, so I'm not entirely surprised about this news (or even hoping for a better sequel than what FO3 was like, for that matter...)

I actually have mixed fillings about this transparency.. I don't know about you guys but part of the excitement of new game for me is the sense of discovery, and I don't mean just the plot but everything including classes mehcnics etc. iirc I spent couple of hours in BG2 with my first character creation, reading about every class thinking about all the possibilities and then spent hours waiting to level up and then reading what everything does and trying to figure what would work best strategy wise for me... Anyway I feel that the kickstarter updates poped my first impression cheery, I already now the classes, many of the abilities and game mechanics (I even learned how one of the game starts) and IMO it would spoil my experience..

Which is why I completely stopped following two of the three main projects I backed up.