After Fallout 4's kind of lackluster approach to story and lore, I found myself more than ever hoping to see Obsidian's take on the series using the new engine. However, after the whole New Vegas metacritic thing(people still seem deeply divided on what happened to this day), I have to wonder what the chances of them getting another game are, and honestly, whether I'm an outlier and other people could really care less.

I know New Vegas sales-wise did very well, but that doesn't always mean everyone liked it. What are your thoughts?

Everyone would like to see a new Obsidian Fallout. Sadly, Bethesda has expanded their development capacity to the point where they really don't need to farm out major franchises anymore.

New Vegas was way better than any Bethesda RPG, so yes.

I'm even okay with the added Obsidian jank at this point.

Well, reviews are generally posted around release and New Vegas had a lot of bugs which really harmed it. It sort of fits with their track record though, with KOTOR2 and NWN2, games that I think despite their flaws are better than their predecessors. Obsidian's games are usually best played 6 months after release.

So, yes. I would love another Obsidian Fallout game.

Yes, I think it would be awesome if Obsidian got the reins to a new Fallout game. Also, I liked Fallout 4's story. Also, Nick Valentine is a cool dude.

It had aspects I really liked, I thought the introduction of synths into the Fallout universe was a really neat idea. It's more the lack of layers to it, New Vegas had layers, Bethesda plot structure by comparison was very binary. It almost felt like Bethesda went for a simpler plot progression over a more complex one because it was easier to write. Though, I have to wonder how much of that was a result of trimming dialogue because of the player voice.

@alexl86: From what I could tell, the metacritic thing was more of a were they aware of the bonus or not, which according to J. Sawyer they weren't and as such they never expected to get it.

Nah. Every Obsidian game has felt fairly inferior to it's predecessors. KoTOR 2 is kinda a mess story-wise, NWN 2 starts decent but progresses into a "we built the story around this type of character" quagmire with a shite ending. New Vegas has a solid world, but playing it isn't exactly pure pleasure.

As for their own works; Matt Rorie's Alpha Protocol has some neat ideas but has similar issues to NWN, and Pillars of Eternity just doesn't do it for me (though there is nothing "bad" about it.)

Yes. Absolutely. Fallout 4 was... disappointing.

New Vegas is one of the most beloved games ever. You are not an outlier.

I don't know. The modern Fallouts are my favourite games and I will always welcome more, but I don't know if it needs to be Obsidian doing it. I didn't have a dramatically better time playing it compared to my playthroughs of 3 and 4. I've enjoyed them all for different reasons.

The Fallout 4 expansion Far Habor is among the best Bethesda content out there and that was done in-house. Just give the team that worked on that the opportunity to do a spin off. Bethesda Game Studios have that second studio in Montreal now anyway, so it's very unlikely they would need to farm it out. They are much bigger as a publisher than in 2010.

Also plot wise, it's worth noting that John Gonzalez, the lead writer for New Vegas has left Obsidian and was recently the narrative director for Horizon: Zero Dawn. Also Chris Avellone is no longer there and is doing stuff freelance.

Yes and no I guess..

Chris Avellone was a big part of writing that game, and he's a contractor now, no? So he could still be involved. But, I bet it would be very different than NV, now having heard what he thought about it himself.

It was funny listening to that DGC episode with Chris Avellone, who (perhaps like all creative people) is way less pumped about the work he wrote himself for Fallout NV than all of us fans are. I wish I could remember exactly what his points were, but, top-level, he disagreed with quest approach. I think this is pretty shocking, since so many people point to that design as amazing. One of the elements he talked about which comes to mind is how they had to divorce companions from the main quests, and feeling that it was too much of a lost opportunity. In his mind, a lot of the variety in the quest paths also came at the cost of quality. It's the May 31st episode (#64) for those who are interested! He has some super interesting tales about writing for that game as well as Planescape.

Personally, I did enjoy NV very much, but I never really really caught the bug. I think at the time I was still burned out from RPG fatigue (I was playing a lot). It's a game I think about revisiting very often with mods, etc. As a Fallout 1 & 2 fan first and foremost, I would prefer Obsidian return to that style of game if they were to take another crack at Fallout. That would be AMAZING considering what Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny are like. But a first person shooter that's largely the same as 3, NV and 4 but written by Obsidian? No thank ye!

@geraltitude: Like 10 years ago Obsidian making an old-school isometric Fallout would have been a cool idea, but now I feel like those games are everywhere and I can more than get my fill if I'm in the mood for it.

I'm surprised I haven't stumbled upon someone working on porting New Vegas into the FO4 engine. I wonder how many of the random crashes could be powered through by not trying to cram that game into a 32 bit executable.

But part of why I loved New Vegas was that it felt like what a 3d Fallout should have been, and not a game that happened in the same universe as Fallout. With the changes over at Obsidian, I'm not sure that'd happen.

It'd be like a Baldur's Gate 3 coming out without the doctors at Bioware. We'd end up with third person, cover based action game staring Irenicus; interdimensional space wizard and his adventures with a romancable Boo (As long as you preordered or bought the DLC) that finally reveals where the missing arks from Mass Effect went.

@zeik said:

We really don't have many that are turn-based the same way though, do we? Most all of them are ARPGs and CRPGs, but, I feel what you're putting down. I just love how Tyranny and PoE look. That art-style applied to some turn-based-tactics would make me smile.

I haven't played Underrail yet, but that game is on my list for the same reasons you mentioned. That said, it's much more oldschool visually than modern Obsidian games.

No I found NV to be really broken and boring to play and I know I'm in the minority. I would love a new isometric rpg in the fallout universe a la 1&2. Loving divinity os1 right now can't wait for 2 and I think they should do fallout in that format. I know it'll never happen but if they do first person for the next fallout I hope they fix the systems and make it more fun with more rpg elements.

Yes. I love Fallout 4, but I'd want an Obsidian-made Fallout game that's more in the vein of the first two.

Yeah, sure, but on the other hand I kinda love that they now have their own universe and making their own games within it, gives them much more creative freedom and I'm sure it's much more satisfying for the devs. Pillars 2 looks amazing and I can't wait for that. Anything Josh Sawyer does is my jam.

After Fallout 4, I think I'm done with Fallout. It just doesn't work very well as a first person open world game. Particularly when married to a creaking engine.

I'd rather see Alpha Protocol 2. It'll never happen, since Sega owns that IP, but I still want it.

Not really. Of the new FO games I thought NV was the weakest and most broken one. I really like Obsidian and I really dig all the stuff they've been doing lately so I prefer if they kept doing their own thing.

I'd absolutely love it if Obsidian got to do a new Fallout, and used the Tyranny/Pillars of Eternity tech to do it.

I guess I'm in a minority these days, but I really didn't feel the shift to first/third person did anything for the franchise.

More than just about anything in the world. New Vegas is easily in my top 5 favorite games.

I don't know what I would like to see from Fallout. I have absolutely no interest in anything Bethesda does with it, as over two games they've shown almost know understanding of what is great about Fallout. I would love to see the storyline that runs through the Black Isle/Obsidian games continued.

With that said, "improvements" to the combat notwithstanding, I don't really have a desire to play something that feels like Fallout 4 ever again, even if the story appeals.

Yes. 100 times yes. They get the setting more than anyone else and make it so much more interesting than BethSofts take. That said they are having a ball being independent at the moment so I'm happy for that to keep rolling.

Not really. I think The better then average story of New Vegas blinded a lot of people to New Vegas's completely inferior gameplay to Fallout 3.

Nothing? I don't play Fallout for the story and when it comes to game play and world-building I felt that New Vegas was the weakest entry in the series. Also it will never happen because Obsidian sued Bethesda over the whole not being paid their bonuses (edit: bonuses for new vegas were dependent on getting a 75% or higher on metacritic and New Vegas received a 74%) fiasco.

Did they sue Bethesda? I've never heard that until now. Also it was >85% and the game scored 84% but I assume that is a typo. And also I know opinions are opinions but suggesting New Vegas has weaker world building than Fallout 3 or 4 is fucking insane.

Edit: Yeah as far as I can tell Obsidian suing Bethesda is untrue/made up.

@ssully: I had way way more fun playing New Vegas than Fallout 3. Literally the only thing Fallout 3 did better than New Vegas in my book is making a slightly more stable game. (And considering F3 still had plenty of issues of its own that's not a huge accomplishment.)

Fallout 3 was an alright game when it came out, but I don't see myself ever touching it again when New Vegas exists and did everything better. Unless I find the mood to mod it to an unrecognizable degree.

I have some faith in Obsidian's writing, but not their gameplay design, and I don't have a lot of interest in another Fallout game in Fallout 4's engine and with Fallout 4's assets. If it was a Fallout game in the style of Fallout, sure, I'd try that.

If it was given the time it needed for polish both before and after release, absolutely.

I wonder what the numbers here are for people who do/don't want it and were fans of the original games, and for people who do/don't want it and came in at Beth/3.

I'm assuming the fans of the original want it in higher numbers than the people who came in at 3.

Just some thoughts, anyways, 100%, I like Bethesdas ability to make a fun toy box. I really enjoy how they cram a bunch of different features together and let you go nuts on them.
They can't tell a story that isn't at best cliche to save their lives though.

So give their toy box to Obsidian and let them craft a good story around those toys, and that's awesome.

Honestly, Fallout 4 left a bad enough taste in my mouth that even the prospect of a new game from Obsidian in the style of New Vegas sounds a little unappealing to me. I'm sure it would have more interesting RPG mechanics (As opposed to the "jack of all trades" blob that every Fallout 4 character will inevitably turn into) and significantly better writing, but... honestly, I'm pretty into what Obsidian is doing right now. I don't really need another Bethesda-style RPG until The Elder Scrolls VI inevitably comes out in like 2-3 years.

If we're talking real "pie in the sky" territory, I think Obsidian could make a hell of an isometric old-school Fallout game. Well, at least a better isometric old-school Fallout game than Wasteland 2 was.

nah, let them do their own thing. I've had enough Fallout for a bit.

Eh, only if it's not an FPS, which isn't gonna happen, because then they'd have to come up with all original assets.

@hayt: my bad. I got a couple of different news stories mixed up.

As for world design, New Vegas weas missing a lot of small details in the world design that is present in FO3 and 4. The map is smaller in New Vegas, its less densely populated with things to do, has less atmosphere, less meaningful side content, more being forced to travel from one side of the map to the other then back again quests, less dungeons, and a lot less polish. The world is essentially one plane with no real verticality to it outside of the odd building or hill, it was just a small piece of desert. While the other fallouts have underground areas, tall buildings to explore, highways, real dungeons, etc.

Bethesda Fallouts also have more attention to detail than New Vegas, for example, the jumping physics in Bethesdas engine are half-broken and this allows you to parkour up mountains that you normally shouldn’t climb up. In FO3 there were numerous times I used this as a shortcut to bypass walking around a mountain and found flat sections that you can tell were purposely placed there to aid you in your quest to break the game, hell, there are even spots with treasure that you couldn’t reach any other way, that is a level of detail that just wasn’t there in New Vegas... in New Vegas Obsidian tried to prevent that stuff by just creating invisible walls all over the place because they didn’t want to spend the time to actually design the world in a way the character wouldn’t get stuck in. They failed at that as well because there are more points where my character was stuck in the geometry of the world than in any other fallout.

Hell, Obsidian trying to actually prevent people from actually exploring or breaking the game is a huge disservice to the Bethesda style. I remember getting out of the vault in FO3 and I found my Dad within the first half-hour and every main story quest (you can still do them) acknowledged that you interrupted the structure of the game (i.e., Two Dog thanking you for fixing the radio tower even though you already found your dadj, that sort of stuff was blocked in New Vegas. Obsidian tried to make things as linear as possible in order to protect their story, that might be cool for people who give a shit about story, but it removes player agency and the sense of just being lost in a giant world. That feeling of being lost and alone in an alien world is one of the things that makes Bethesda games special and by forcing the player down a corridor, relative to FO3, they kind of screwed things up.

Hell yeah to bad it's never gonna happen.

KotOR 2 was LucasArts's fault, not Obsidian's.

Yes!

Seeing as Obsidian are the only ones capable of making a good Fallout game then of course. In an ideal world they'd have a crack at making the only good elder scrolls game as well but... oh well.

Yes!

@hayt: there's wasn't much world building in 3 or NV. 4 had a lot world building but it was tedious and it didn't really pay off like it should.

@monetarydread: yep nv made me sad cause you couldn't just rip the story up and throw it away like in 3. They made you do it and if you didn't follow it there wasn't a lot of really fun side stuff that weren't repeat fetch quests for rep with factions that you didn't care about nor knew why you should Join any if the factions. The factions bugged me in 4 too. It was annoying and extremely broken. In NV you could max your luck and play slots and get more caps than you could ever spend. I liked the perk chart in 4 but was sad that you just got to pick one or improve a special stat at each level which was kinda sucky. I liked 3 the best overall with the most varied locations characters and pretty good story imo.

This, 100%.

they need to make a fallout game where you aren't automatically an ex vault dweller. you can pick wastelander, mutant, ghouls, human, etc and a class possibly and each one has a specific storyline but they don't end in the same place. Lots of replay ability.

I very much enjoyed New Vegas with its characters and setting and considering it will take forever for another Fallout to be made if it's only Bethesda making them then yes I would like Obsidian to make another.

@ssully: I'm curious as to why you say that. New Vegas added a lot of depth to the gunplay, and that's just the start of it. Fallout 3 could be broen by the time you were level 5 just by dumping points into sneak and small guns; they give you a pistol with 100 rounds of ammo upfront, and all of the speech checks are random chance so investing in diplomacy is a waste. New Vegas built up every lackluster system in FO3 and actually felt like an RPG and a world, whereas Fallout 3 was just a big map that Bethesda was really eager to show off and have the player shoot things in.

Just FYI, Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky (two of the main guys behind the original Fallouts) are currently at Obsidian working on a multi-platform UE4-based RPG which they've said is not fantasy or SciFi. It's not Fallout, but I'm very interested to see what they come up with.

Sure, but considering Bethesda tried to bankrupt Obsidian last time they worked together, I don't think it's likely. Obsidian had to lay off a third of their staff to avoid being bought by Bethesda. I don't think they'd ever be willing to work with them again.

Whut? First "Obsidian sued Bethesda" now Bethesda tried to Bankrupt Obsidian in some kind of hostile takeover attempt?

I don't know where people get this stuff.

I tried to like fallout but i just think it's not a very good franchise/universe or just gameplay not really sure, but i tried 3 and 4 and couldn't get into either. Since i didn't get into 3 i never tried new vegas but i think the franchise just isn't for me. I would much rather see an obsidian elder scrolls if anything, I enjoy that universe a lot more and some better writing would do it some good.

I just bought Fallout: New Vegas several months ago. I played maybe fifteen hours of it? I like it fine from what I played, but other games are taking my interest over it so it has been one of those on and off kind of games, where I come back to it every now and then. I just took it off the system a while back though because my thought is that I'll play it closer to another Fallout release. Unfortunately, as much as I played, I hadn't even reached the Las Vegas area; it was all the wasteland area. I don't really care for Fallout 3's and New Vegas' wasteland environment. I can't really expect more, but its color palette is so bland and the visuals themselves are kind of ugly that it doesn't help. Also, I liked Fallout 4! I just wish the story in the second half delivered better, and the frame rate (playing on PS4) was steady in areas. Also, come on, there was no brightness setting. I don't like when games force you to change your TV settings. Oh, I didn't answer the question. My answer is, sure?