When the leak for Fallout 4 happened it sounded so absurd that I just could not believe it, then it turned out to be true. I'm not gonna pretend like I know what's what anymore as we're living in a clown world. However... It would be really funny if Fallout 5 was taken off of their hands.
I'm just gonna have fun and wildly speculate!
A lot of AAA studios nowadays take for-fucking-ever to develop their games because of mismanagement, changing goalposts, fairweather vision and a flat out lack of competence. Bethesda has always been on the sluggish side when it comes to developing games for their audience. It's not that it is preferable to have a factory conveyor belt of games constantly shat out as products but a simple matter of fact is that both TES and Fallout has been uh... Failed to be capitalized upon in the proper manner.
And if they're now owned by Microsoft who is not doing too peachy and they're gonna be locked down with TES6 for a while then... Well, enough is enough innit? You're too slow. You need to branch out with multiple studios to fully capitalize on the intellectual properties. If we're gonna throw in Starfield as a "franchise" at this point then the development schedule for games from Bethesda proper is further dragged out.
It makes sense to allow other studios to develop games for their intellectual property.
It's not like Bethesda really cares about Fallout or TES on an artistic level so miss me with this nonsense of those franchises being Bethesda's "babies". Cause Bethesda is dangling that baby out the window holding it upside down by the leg.
However... It's not a spin--off in this case. It's Fallout
5.
Could that mean that Bethesda is tired of making Fallout games?
Wanna hand the reigns over to someone else? Or are they just not trusted to be competent enough to handle 5? Why's that? Because Starfield wasn't the tentpole xbox game they hoped it'd be? Starfield isn't like nu-Fallout, that's part of the problem. Surely Microsoft would understand that. If Bethesda had to go back to the "usual design" then they'd make a "usual Bethesda game" for whatever that's worth.
I have a little conspiracy theory...
See I've talked about TES6 not being able to live up to people's expectations because of the simple fact that Bethesda has done nothing to work on and improve any of the core gameplay features that exist within TES through Fallout 4, 76 and Starfield. The "magic system" could be improved upon through abilities and mutations and the star powers in Starfield. Archery could be improved upon in Fallout, there's tribals in it. And Melee is a feature in every single one of the games but it has gotten no rework since Skyrim. It's basically there to be there.
So... What if Microsoft has seen what TES6 looks like at the moment and shudder? What if they see another flop? Fallout 4 was not as well received as Skyrim was, I'd even argue unfairly so, I think people are more critical of Fallout 4 than they are of Skyrim and Fallout 4 in my eyes is the far better "game" out of the two. Fallout 76 was a complete disaster that is only supported by fiscally irresponsible whales who unhinge their jaws to swallow macrotransactions en masse, locked in a stockholm syndrome where they claim that the game is good now! (it isn't) And finally we have Starfield, their magnum opus! And what a middling mess it was. I have no idea how much money it made but the reception is clear, people are not happy with it.
And now, they see another clunky, wonky, stiff, unresponsive, health sponge, badly written, bloated mess of a game.
Should you really be betting on a horse who's every race it is performing worse and worse at? No. Microsoft is a business and they're gonna have to get their head out of their collective ass if they wanna stay in the console industry and course correct their studios. And if Bethesda has proven time and time again that they just cannot produce another Fallout 3 or Skyrim then... Well that's that. Microsoft is not gonna wait 17 years for another Fallout game to be made.
I would say that the general audience has gotten tired of Bethesda's nonsense game design and wonky buggy gameworlds but the fact that Oblivion Remastered of all things managed to get the hype it did and took so long to fall off to Mostly positive is not exactly supporting that claim. All you need is some fancy graphics slathered on, some "mood" and then bloat the install size to 150 gig and people go apeshit for it. Why? I don't know. People are retarded.
But that was a remaster for and old classic that is supposed to be a "great cult classic", you're not allowed to dislike it, you have to force yourself to see something positive about it because it is an older game! Before we had all of these BAD game designs and business practices! So it's good! Because it's good!
However TES6 is not an old game remastered where people will lie to themselves about its quality to fit in. It's a modern game, a 202...7? Game. There is an expectation of quality that 4, 76 and failed to live up to repeatedly.
I can't claim to KNOW what the response to TES6 will be. The pattern of mainline actual games is not good. But Oblivion Remastered got amazing initial hype and praise at least, and that's when most of the sales happen.
Anyway, my conspiracy theory is that Bethesda is simply incapable of making a jump in general improvement to the formula the same way Skyrim was to Oblivion was to Morrowind. There is going to be high expectations after other first person medieval games have come out and shown how good first person combat can be, how responsive it can be. If TES6 is incapable of meeting that and is just another whack a mole swingathon with health sponges then I just cannot imagine people being satisfied with it.
And maybe Microsoft looked at TES6 and concluded that too. Bethesda is only capable of making middling games with diminishing returns. Once the hype for TES6 dies down after such a long gap between Skyrim then what? Another Starfield? Who even wants that? More Fallout? Yawn. More TES? God no.
So playing it safe maybe they decided to move Fallout's production to another studio, probably utilizing a completely different engine.
Anyway, if this is true? Then it's hilarious.
Do I think the next Fallout will be good because of it?
Fuck no.
Microsoft barely has any good studios in it.
But it'll be funny to see Bethesda cope and seethe.
However I am still firmly up on the fence as to what to think about this. All of this is just wild speculation for funsies. I'll believe it when I see it. I do think TES6 is gonna be a massively hyped up dud that everyone will gaslight themselves into thinking is good only for it to fall off worse than Oblivion Remastered did.
www.thegamer.com
