Should Obsidian be the only one making Fallout games?

I think the point of difference is here, I too enjoyed Fallout 3 more than I did New Vegas, and it is because I liked the better video game, not the better Fallout game

You people saying Fallout 3 is better than New Vegas are monsters.

Obsidian has been pretty open about willing to do more Fallouts and I'd be absolutely 110% okay with that. If not, I'd at least like them to have a hand in the story and design parts.

I'm not sure why some of you guys are making it seem like New Vegas was some buggy clusterfuck while Fallout 3 was not. I played Fallout 3 when the GoTY Edition came out and it was all patched up and I got New Vegas at launch, and I have to say I personally encountered much less problems in New Vegas than 3. And I played hundreds of hours of New Vegas vs. about 90 for Fallout 3.

What about Fallout 3 is a better game than Fallout New Vegas? Honestly though. New Vegas has more polished gameplay, a better story, FAR better writing, better crafting system, far better mechanics in place, such as the faction system, better character development, it's a lot more balanced, the enemies aren't ridiculously scaled to your level.

The only thing better in Fallout 3 is the wasteland itself, and I fail to see how that makes it the better game.

I will take the superior writing of New Vegas over the more open world of Fallout 3 every time. Bethesda can do scale, and they can do it well, but hot damn did I hate running through identical grey metro tunnels to get to certain parts of downtown DC.

Fallout New Vegas might be a little more closely related to the original games in terms of how it plays out. I spent a decent amount of time with Fallout NV and eventually beat it, but Fallout 3 was crafted VERY well. Quests were okay, but every environment I though was really interesting. Everything was perfectly placed so that when you go through the wasteland you would see some building on the horizon and you could run over there and check it out. NV by comparison almost has none of that. Everything is really spaced out and much of it is inaccessible or just boring. It is also really buggy in a broken sort sort of way and didn't handle as well. Not that 3 handled awesomely, but it did handle better.

I would not mind New Vegas was way better then Fallout 3 it would make sense that way Bethesda could make Fallout games and Elder Scrolls games at the same time it just makes sense if you ask me. All that said at this point I just want Fallout 4 and don't care which one makes it lol.

Matt Rorie is that you?

I'd kill for a Firaxis Fallout.

I think New Vegas is leagues better than Fallout 3, unmodded, modded and in the add-ons. That said, I still don't think Obsidian should be the only people working on the franchise. Bathesda still did a pretty good job on the 3, especially since it was their first go at it, and I hope it follows the track record of Oblivion to Skyrim with Fallout 4 coming out.

Also, to echo some of the other posts in the thread, I'd love to see what other teams would do given the same tools and opportunity as Obsidian. They're pretty much the Fallout guys, but I wouldn't mind seeing what comes out from other studios if given the chance.

@krullban: You are quite right about the mechanics, the crafting system and the main questline being superior, I agree with you fully. But you also have to take into account that these systems arose as incremental changes to Fallout 3's system, which was the first run at this Bethesda style open world in a post-Apocalypse setting. Furthermore what I begin to realize as I pondered this question is how integral the world is, and that these Bethesda style RPG's-for me Fallout 2 as well (only older fallout game I've played) set the world as the main character and not yourself. I believe these games live in die upon the interest that their world generates. I don't find myself looking up wiki entries for individual characters, because frankly none of them are that great, but I have spent hours reading about the world Bethesda expanded upon. In my opinion Fallout 3 creates a far more interesting expansion onto the Fallout lore than that of NV, and makes it my favorite of the two

That being said your personal opinions are totally valid, and I for all intensive purposes am objectively wrong, because for me it is more the feel of Fallout 3 that I enjoy more.

New Vegas was better than Fallout 3, so yes

Vegas is the better game, but I think Obsidian really need someone else to go before them and lay the groundwork (as Bethesda did with Fallout 3 and Bioware did with KOTOR). Would you want them making the first Fallout game of this gen? Maybe not.

Tbh Obsidian should probably just be going from project to project exclusively as story / quest design consultants. I don't think any studio in the industry is better at those elements.

I mean Bethesda made something really new and special with Fallout 3 and Obsidian made a pretty good follow up to it. Remember it's Obsidian, the company that makes good sequels?

We want Fallout 4 to be innovative and fresh, not just in incremental upgrade the way NV was.

Personally I found NV very off-putting, but mostly because I found the wasteland boring as hell to explore compared to D.C. In D.C. I was exploring all these ruined versions of places I know of, I was seeing how they survived the apocalypse. D.C. was this massive urban playground but with recognisable places. I don't care anything about Vegas and don't know any of the landmarks and it's the same old bland desert in the way that Fallout 1 was (a game that I really need to go back and finish, but the same bland desert environment is very off-putting to me there as well).

I guess exploring a cool world with satisfying combat is what I'm here for, Elder Scrolls provides an interesting world, NV still has the good F3 combat, Fallout 3 has both.

I dunno man, remember how much of Fallout 3 was having to go into confusing-ass tunnel systems to get to a walled off part of the city? I usually hate desert levels but I still felt way more compelled to explore it than a bunch of tall office buildings with the same 3 pieces of furniture and enemies strewn about.

@jimbo: Let's be real here though. Given the choice, absolutely nobody would recommend Bethesda as the studio to handle the technical groundwork.

I really doubt Obsidian could have made New Vegas as a good as it was if Bethesda hadn't made Fallout 3. And honestly I thought the crafting stuff they added and the way factions worked was bad. Really the only thing they did better was the main story. Also NV DLC was average to bad.

I love both but I'm not putting my trust in Obsidian to make a new one without having a base to build from.

Unless the question was "Who should handle the technical groundwork, Bethesda or Obsidian?".

This is true, and Fallout 3 was relatively bug free. I'm sure there were some that I wasn't remembering. But I remember a lot of random stupid shit happening in NV that almost made me just stop playing. To say that NV was objectively better is just absurd. The story was better, much better, but the game itself was kinda a mess in a way that FO3 definitely wasn't. They are also HORRENDOUS (well... maybe a bit harsh, but they're better at storytelling than the tech side) at creating their own tech. Let us not forget Alpha Protocol. Sure Stick of Truth is sound, but it's not nearly as complicated as something like a Fallout game.

Excuse me?

Like I said, I don't remember running into many, or any, bugs in Fallout 3. The last time I played it was 2009 though whereas NV I finished a year or so ago. I'm sure there were definitely bugs. But relatively compared to NV, it was pretty sound. Like NV I remember small graphical issues such as ants rotating vertically through the environment in the early stages of the game. NPCs getting stuck in such a way that I couldn't progress, and the faction AI fucking up so much that I was forced into just killing everyone because they were randomly hostile once I entered a room where I HAD to turn in a quest, but not before.

I don't want Obsidian making it so much as I want Obsidian's writers making it. The writing in New Vegas is lightyears ahead of anything in 3 and it'll be a shame if 4 doesn't live up to that.

Word. Ideally I would want Bethesda making the game and Obsidian writing it.

It probably wont happen, but a man can dream, can't he?

Yeah I didn't even finish New Vegas. Partly because of a game breaking glitch in the main quest but I didn't even bother doing all of the side quests, and I 100%edFallout 3 and Oblivion.

Yes. Leave Fallout to Obsidian and Elder Scrolls to Bethesda. And cancel Elder Scrolls Online. Just shut it down.

Oh and you might want to hire some writers and especially some more testers.

i wouldnt say only,but i would prefer obsidian being the ones to make them between the two.however,the perfect situation is bethesda and obsidian working on the game together,that would be the perfect fallout game in my eyes.

Yes. I think what some people don't get is there is no way Obsibian would be able to create the kind of world Bethesda could. They can make something using an already existing engine but they're not going to make the next revolutionary engine. Betheseda went from Fallout 3 to Skyrim, and in the same console-generation made a MASSIVE leap. Obsibian just doesn't have that world building talent because really only Rockstar is as good at creating open worlds as Bethesda. The writing was better in New Vegas to me but I also didn't think it was the best story ever.

Yup, I got locked in a vault cos the game never triggered the elevator to take me out....it was also the same elevator to make the floating eyebot companion come back after disappearing yet still taking up a slot in my companions. I crashed alot aswell as having some weird stuff happen...such was a walk into a building to find pitch black.

Fall out 3 I was walking by a high and saw some outcast brotherhood walk past me, I was scavenging when I saw a robot fly at 100 miles past me almost hitting me and saw it flying out of draw distance. I follow the trajectory to find out why that happened, found the outcast dead 2 robots dead and one Deathclaw happy with its new toys, that is a funny bug.

Yes. And no. Yes- Obsidian is way better at telling stories than Bethesda. No- I would like to see other developers go nuts with the Fallout franchise.

How so?

People really think that New Vegas was better than Fallout 3? I thought it was generally accepted that Fallout 3 was the better one and New Vegas was just using the same assets with a new story (that was just as good as Fallout 3's, if not better.) While I wouldn't be crushed that Obsidian would be making a new Fallout, I would be disappointed with the amazing job Bethesda did with 3. If this is truly Fallout 4 though, it's going to be Bethesda. I have a feeling they will be handling the numbered releases and Obsidian, if they make another game, will use assets and make an offshoot game like NV.

I kind of agee, but I'm coming from it from the angle of wanting Beth game studio to make another TES game.

I enjoyed both Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but over all I felt that obsidian was able to tell a more coherent and over all more ejoyable story. Beth build great worlds within their own TES universe, but I feel Obsidian is better at telling stories.

Is it possible to have Obsidian make most of the game, but have another developer QA it before it comes out? Even if they generally tell better stories, that doesn't do any good if I can't play through the game, and Obsidian doesn't seem capable of making anything that isn't a bug-filled technical disaster. I don't know if it's a talent thing or if they just never leave themselves enough time for dedicated bug squashing, but most of their games run like utter garbage, even when working off an existing engine.

That's why I'm really nervous for Pillars of Eternity. I'd love me some spiritual throwback to Baldur's Gate, but then I remember that Obsidian is making it, and I just know it's going to be plagued with crashes and game breaking bugs.

Fallout 3 is a fallout game the same way that me opening a document and typing what I remember of Fallout 2 is a fallout game.

It's a fucking best-of montage. New Vegas, by contrast, moves the universe forward. There are new threats, the landscape has changed, the politics have changed, characters have changed.

Fallout 3 has a dad.

This was a very sneaky way to create a Fallout 3 vs New Vegas thread....

absolutely. bethesda should stick to elder scrolls since that's obviously the only thing they're slightly competent at making. fo3 still is one of the biggest disappointments i've experienced.

This is too ironic.

@professoress: With the same budget and same amount of time I would choose Obsidian.

Yes, New Vegas is an infinitely better experience than Fallout 3. I'll never understand people's love of the infinite subways and rubble that all look the same, tied to that god awful story.

Moira Brown and the Tenpenny Tower quest were the only shining moments in F3.

Figured I would ask here instead of a whole new topic... when is this Bethesda conference thingy?

It feels weird living in a world where people think that Fallout 3 is a good game (let alone their favourite game). Sure, it's enjoyable, but it's a flimsy mess.

You guys are fucking insane. Anyone who thinks Fallout 3 was better than Fallout NV is a goddamn lunatic with bad opinions. Sure NV was buggy when it came out but if the bugs bothered you so much you should've waited a few months. Aside from the bugs it's just better than 3 in every single aspect. The world is miles better, the characters are way more fleshed out and distinctive, the dungeons all tell a story instead of being boring oblivion style dungeons and the main story arc is way better.

Well Fallout 3 is one of my all time favorite games, so I'm going to go with NO

I don't know what game you were playing but Fallout 3 was an absolute mess that (thankfully) slowly got fixed. NV was buggy, sure, but not nearly as out and out broken as FO3 at launch.

Also, this is purely anecdotal, so take it with a pinch of salt, but when I was ~14-18 I used make a bit of cash doing solder reflows on bricked consoles. The number one game by far that people said they were playing when their PS3 got a YLOD was Fallout 3. There's every chance that that could be a coincidence, but considering the way that game ran, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't.

Fallout 3 on PS3 was just complete garbage honestly. Not sure about YLOD, but it became unplayable at one point. Similar to many other Bethesda games on PS3.

What's up with all the people coming out of the woodwork saying Fallout 3 is one of their favorite games? Fallout:NV is just Fallout 3 but better in every way. Better world building, better characters, better locals, better action, better choices, etc etc etc.

While I prefer New Vegas over Fallout 3, I don't think either of them really got what I liked about the Fallout series. I'd probably be more interested if someone let Harebrained Schemes or Larian Studios make a Fallout game. Divinity: Original Sin got most of it right after all.

Hmm, maybe it was a PS3 thing. But I played on both Xbox 360 and PC (my friends PC) when the game first came out and I never had any issues.

I liked Fallout 3's world better, but New Vegas topped it in pretty much every other respect.

No, Fallout 3 was undeniably a good game, even if you (Wrongly) prefer New Vegas it would be a shame to not give multiple teams a shot at making it good.

Let me preface this by saying tht before Fallout 3 I had never played (nor heard of the series at the time) and I had picked it up on a whim because it was cheap, but my god I just couldn't get into it at all. I don't recall what turned me off of it because it's been a while since I've last tried to play it, but I gave that game mulitiple chances and at least 10 hours of my time before I gave up on it.

Years later I picked up Fallout: New Vegas because it was cheap at the time and even though I didn't like Fallout 3 at all I decided to give New Vegas a shot anyway and boy howdy did I love that game. I think I've finished it with at least three different characters at this point and I enjoyed my time with it every single time.

That being said I wouldn't mind trying out Fallout 3 yet again to see if I would still end up hating it like I used too.