Todd Howard on new collaboration with Obsidian
There’s a new Fallout game in the works from Bethesda Game Studios and Obsidian Entertainment. Speaking to Bloomberg, franchise director Todd Howard confirmed the new project (now in the franchise lineup alongside Fallout 5, currently in preproduction, and remasters of Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 3) and told the outlet “We could not be more excited to work with Obsidian again.” The teams previously joined forces on 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas. According to Howard, “the timing is right” for the project.
Howard didn’t give many details on the new game, but noted that the franchise is “managed out of here and our staff and our franchise teams” at Bethesda.
The news comes in the aftermath of Xbox’s latest round of mass layoffs, which affected 1600 employees starting on July 6, with 1600 to follow in the upcoming fiscal year. Obsidian was hit hard by the cuts, losing approximately one quarter of its staff. Bethesda itself was also hit with a number of cuts, which Howard called “really tough.”
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reportedly ordered the mass cuts to the “not healthy” business, after huge bets on Game Pass and acquisitions, alongside the AI-driven hardware crisis (which, notably, Microsoft has a large hand in). Labor unions in the US and Canada have taken legal action against the company for its handling of the mass layoffs.
