Bethesda is Looking at the Fallout Franchise Differently Thanks to Fallout 76
Pete Hines, the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Bethesda, recently spoke with Yahoo about Fallout 76. According to Hines, the game is changing the way that Bethesda is looking at the future of the Fallout series. Aspects like the new Fallout 76 multiplayer are causing the developers to see the series in a new light.
How Bethesda is Looking Differently at the Future of Fallout
As Hines and others from Bethesda have stated on several occasions, Fallout 76 doesn’t represent a major shift away from single-player games; Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, the studio’s next two upcoming titles, will both be dedicated single-player experiences. They should be closer to what fans are accustomed to seeing from Bethesda. However, the studio reportedly hopes to see Fallout 76 last for a very long time indeed. That could certainly impact the future of the Fallout franchise in particular.
According to Hines, the new challenges of Fallout 76 are causing Bethesda to take new approaches with the series; “If it was just Fallout 5,” he says; “it would be like, ‘it’s a single player Fallout and here’s what’s new or different.’ We’d have to do a lot but there will also be a lot that people already know or understand. When we’re saying it’s a big departure there are a lot of questions. How is this going to work as an online game because it’s so different? Even things like ‘what does PvP mean,’ is somebody just going to be able to kill me over and over again? No, we have a system for it.”
Bethesda’s Future Projects
Bethesda has yet to announce any future Fallout projects beyond Fallout 76. It has been stated by Todd Howard and others that Fallout 76 is not Fallout 5; i.e., it should be considered a spin-off rather than a continuation of the core series. As such, fans may see a return to the standard formula for Fallout at some point. However, for years, Bethesda’s plans have been structured around Elder Scrolls 6; what is coming before the next Elder Scrolls.
With those projects now all announced, it remains to be seen what will be next for the franchise. One reason why Bethesda may want Fallout 76 to last a long time could be that, with the focus shifting to Starfield and then Elder Scrolls 6, it may well be a few years before fans hear any news of another Fallout title.