Todd Howard says Fallout 4 "did not resonate" in one key way, but Bethesda has "hundreds" working on the series right now

The Fallout series has been through a bit of a rollercoaster over the past two decades. From the highs of Fallout 3 and New Vegas, it fell back towards the radiation-soaked earth with the solid but far less beloved Fallout 4. That plummet took the series subterranean with the rocky launch of Fallout 76, but the MMO has rehabilitated itself in the years since. With a successful TV show and a redemption arc for its first crack at live-service, I'm hopeful for the series' future. Now, Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard has gone on record to say that there are "hundreds" of staff working on Fallout right now, and it's not just 76 in development.

After crafting a reputation for making some of the best RPGs money can buy (New Vegas is on my personal RPG Mt. Rushmore and should be on yours, too), I'm cautiously optimistic for whatever's next. And while development of Fallout 76's live-service is ongoing, it appears that a follow-up to Fallout 4 or a remake of an older Fallout game may be in the works, too.

When asked by GQ what he's working on, Howard says, "We have hundreds of people on Fallout right now, with 76 and some other things we're doing, but The Elder Scrolls 6 is the everyday thing." Obviously the Skyrim follow-up takes priority over an unannounced Fallout game, but his answer to the interview's final question is also thought-provoking.

When asked if Bethesda might shadowdrop TES 6 after its suprise launch of Oblivion Remastered, Howard replies, "You might say that was a test run. It worked out well." While I can't see such a huge game being shadowdropped, even at The Game Awards or something similarly huge, a potential Fallout 3 remake could certainly receive the Oblivion treatment.

Excitement for future games aside, Howard is aware that not everything Bethesda has attempted in this universe has landed. He notes in particular that Fallout 4's dialogue system received a lot of criticism, and seems to express regret that designers were forced to write around it.

"We spent forever on the dialogue system in Fallout 4," he explains. "How do we do an interactive conversation in an interesting way? How do we make that gamey? But it really did not resonate. It was also hard on our designers to write that way. Players want to role-play more and we had a voiced protagonist. The actors were phenomenal, but a lot of players were like, 'That's not the voice I hear in my head'."

Hopefully, Bethesda can take learnings from Fallout 4 and Starfield forward. Howard says The Elder Scrolls 6 release date is still a long way off, and a new Fallout game is presumably further still, but if Bethesda can listen to the players and include that feedback in its future games, the studio will be back on track.

For me, personally? I just want another Fallout game with the tone and roleplaying options of Fallout: New Vegas. Did I mention how great that game is?