godammit microsoft. could have just not bought them but noooooooooo.

Now move them both under inXile and let Brian Fargo cook.

I know Microsoft gets all the hate for buying them, but I put the blame of bethesda's recent failures on Todd Howard. He has squandered all the momentum the studio had and just put them into coasting mode. They had the high of releasing fallout 4 and skyrim, then did fuck all but milk them. Sure, fallout 76 happened -and what a failure that was. Then he had his big push for Starfield- and failed not only on the delivery but also the follow through with not addressing any of the fan concerns in the dlc's. They squandered so many years that should have been spend continuing their two biggest flagships (fallout and elder scrolls) but instead fucked around for well over a decade. Now they are going to put the studio on crunch time for an entire development to try and get back on track and I am calling it now that it is going to show in the final product.

Edit: I recognize that in my rantings and rebuttals I have omitted Elder Scrolls Online. And I would give credit where credit is due on the success that it was. It is still being worked on after being released all the way back in 2014, and has generated over $2 billion in sales. I would also like to point out how Todd Howard had nothing to do with that one and isn't on any of its credits...

this is more about destroying obsidian.

Microsoft just butchered bethesda. More than anything this looks like obsidian is being rehoused as a life saving measure for bethesda. I would expect this to be less about anything against obsidian and more about something for bethesda.

yeah seriously i hate when studios try something new, give me fallout and elder scrolls every year like call of duty!

Lol. Yes, I understand your comment and agree. But at the same time, when you look at how Todd executed his grand vision of starfield it was a mess of a game that seemed half baked at best. I support new IP's, but he could have at least finished making the game before calling it ready. This is an AAA studio, not some indy early release.

And I'm not asking for some absurd release schedule like COD or BF. Skyrim came out in 2011. Fallout 4 came out in 2015 (glossing over the basically-a-multiplayer-mod-for-money of 76 in 2018).

But if bethesda had some real leadership, they would have pointed out "we have a TV show coming out" and should have also said "we should ride the wave of excitement and have a game ready". They knew they had a show in development starting in 2020 and didn't do anything. The show came out in 2024, and they didn't have anything. It is now 2026, and approaching 2027 and they still have nothing. What a fucking wasted opportunity. At best they will start FO5 in 2027 with a projected release date of 2030, about 6 years after the show released and 15 years after FO4.

Goodbye Obsidian.

Fallout 4 a high? I think many will agree that the previous entries in that series (both NV and 3) where better and that this game, while neither great nor terrible, was the beginning of the downfall (overhyped, buggy, little innovation, okay-ish graphics, most interesting stuff in DLC)

F

10,000 IQ move

Then they'd either be gone, reduced to 5-6 people after THQNordic'isation or making live service games under Sony.

Obsidian was broke.

The next Fallout game and Elder Scrolls 6 are going to suck, calling it now.

overhyped, buggy, little innovation, okay-ish graphics

They already said it was a Bethesda game

You're blaming the wrong person. 76 was an attempt from zenimax to pivot into GaaS, all games coming out of zeni at that time had that premise. Todd was just trying to fit the fallout franchise into that.

Makes you wonder what happened to Todd Howard in the first place. Maybe he's not good management but a better developer

PLEASE

I think its the opposite way around. Todd was an amazing manager who could coordinate a pool of incredibly talented developers to get a staggering volume of good content shipped.

And then, games journalists went ahead and did a lazy thing that they really should know better than to do, and attributed the entirety of Skyrim's success to him, because attributing specific work in a game to specific team members is hard and takes time to research.

And when you repeat a lie enough times, you begin to believe it.

Todd forgot he was the least talented member of the team on Skyrim, he was the guy at the end of the production line that collaged the hard work of everyone else into a shippable game.

Fast forward to Starfield. Todd is fully drunk on his own mythos. All of the old team has left, and honestly? Good riddence. Their sensibilities were only holding him back. Don't they know he's the star? The genius that singlehandedly cracked the code on how to make a perfect videogame?

But the truth is, his his team was right when they said Starfield wasn't fun, and Todd was dead wrong.

That makes complete sense and honesty I hope Todd has learned his lesson and MS are wrangling him in.

Todd really couldn't have anyone else making fallout. He resisted for so long having obsidian make another fallout that he got Microsoft to let Bethesda absorb them. So now his delicate ego can still say Bethesda made the next fallout new Vegas 2 or whatever.

Fair enough I guess :D

But hasn't always been like that

and they will somehow make 10 gorzillion dollars

I don't know man, the only Bethesda game I can think of that wasn't a buggy mess is Arena and maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough.

Yessss, I want more isometric (or equivalent) Fallout games!

Where credit is due, they really turned Fallout 76 around. I played it for 3 months after it came out, basically ragequitted. Few years later, now it feels like a different game with so much more to do