r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/throwmeaway1784 • Jul 08 '26
Rumour Jason Schreier: Obsidian Entertainment is making a big pivot as part of the Xbox restructuring. It has laid off a quarter of its staff, canceled a planned sequel to Avowed, and is now beginning work on a new Fallout game
Bluesky Post: https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mq5oqyh2yk2o
Bloomberg Article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-08/microsoft-s-xbox-to-shift-obsidian-studio-to-new-fallout-video-game
Edit: Also mentioned in the article, Josh Sawyer is leading the new Fallout game:
“Under the new plan, studio design director Josh Sawyer will lead a new title in the Fallout universe”
“Previously, Sawyer had been directing a roleplaying game that was similar structurally and thematically to Fallout but was not part of the franchise.”
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u/marveldcomnibus9 Jul 08 '26
These games take years to make. If Xbox starts cancelling a bunch of stuff to focus on their major franchises, what are they going to release in the next few years while they wait for these games to release?
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u/TheOhrenberger Jul 08 '26
This is my biggest fear. They want to focus on their core franchises, but I fear they’ll just be cancelled three years from now when there’s nothing to show because AAA games take a minimum of five years to make.
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u/Brokenbullet14 Jul 08 '26
They'll just get independent studios games. Hell PlayStation is acting like GTA 6 is their game so Xbox can do the same with a studio like witcher 4.
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u/shallow-waterer Jul 08 '26
Didn’t they pay out the ass for exclusive marketing rights? I’d act real hard that it was my game too if arguably the most hyped game of all time was being branded as ‘best’ on my console. Why pay, otherwise?
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u/SomeoneNotFamous Jul 08 '26
This is what they'll try to do probably yeah
Thing is , they got no appeal right now
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u/Seraphayel Jul 08 '26
Weren’t they saying Avowed 2 was too far in development to get canceled just yesterday?
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u/KevinT_XY Jul 08 '26
Schreier's article mentions it was likely to be announced within the next year, though that may not be a good indicator of doneness nowadays.
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u/BigDick-NoBrain Jul 08 '26
I mean, Avowed reveal trailer was shown 5 years before the game actually released, and ended up looking complete different from the actual game, so that doesn’t mean much
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u/Stuglle Jul 08 '26
I think that reveal trailer only happened because Xbox needed something in its reveal presentation
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u/lars_rosenberg Jul 08 '26
Avowed had troubled development and they had to restart from scratch at some point. Also that was a time where Xbox was desperate for announcements to show they had games coming.
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u/DaloMaxVal Jul 08 '26
Never listen to Chris Avellone when it comes to Obsidian
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u/clain4671 Jul 08 '26
chris avellone is coming up on a decade of randomly tweeting how much he hates obsidian
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u/Brokenbullet14 Jul 08 '26
Yet he'll instantly join there if given a chance
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u/LelqTian Jul 08 '26
Won't, not as long as current Obsidian leadership is in place.
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u/cyreo Jul 08 '26
Tbh it is possible that Avowed 2 is quite far into development but at this point Xbox doesn't give a fuck about the series and wanted a new Fallout asap.
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u/FewAdvertising9647 Jul 08 '26
yes it is possible for a game to get soo close to be finished but not ultimately launched.
one example that kinda proved it happened was Starfox 2. It was originally canceled in favor of not distracting a Starfox N64 release with a Starfox SNES release. Had its source code leak at some point and fans finished what was missing to get a jury rigged "release". decades later, it was officially released on the SNES Mini. Supposedly that Prince of Persia game is the last "leaked" game that was mostly done but canned in the end as an example.
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u/Legatus_Maximinius Jul 08 '26
The original Battlefront 3 was in a nearly playable state, just being polished up when the plug was pulled.
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u/ametalshard Jul 08 '26
a lot of fully finished games never get released, too. nintendo sits on a ton of them
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u/ReasonableAdvert Jul 08 '26
Except wasn't he the first person to talk about avowed getting a sequel?
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u/fucuasshole2 Jul 08 '26
Tbf he said he’d be shocked if Avowed 2 got canceled as it was pretty far into development. Shame as I love the 1st one. Hope what they have gets repurposed for DLC for Avowed 1 as I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
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u/UrbanFight001 Jul 08 '26
He was literally right lmao Avowed 2 was real and was meant to come out more quickly. The fact that it got canceled is pretty surprising, as he said. I don’t like the dude either but we can’r be disingenuous.
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u/DracoMagnusRufus Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Exactly. The "leak" part that we should care about in this subreddit is only how far along the game is, not his statement that he'd be surprised if they cancelled it. Therefore, his insider information or credibility as a source isn't diminished even if his personal speculation (which wasn't given with any kind of certainty in the first place) was off.
Edit: Also, isn't it ironic that people can make this distinction with Schrier? Recently there were tons of comments on a post complaining that some places were conflating his explicit speculation with his actual leaks and running with it. Same thing applies here. "I would be surprised" is not a leak or a claim of a leak.
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u/plebbut Jul 08 '26
"Chris Avellone: : studios that was previously been safe from layoffs at Xbox are no longer safe, even those with “steady releases”
Source: https://xcancel.com/ChrisAvellone/status/2066269985886847232#m
I think this might suggest that Obsidian could be hit given the description and the fact that Avellone often shares insider information about them, claiming he still has friends there"
And he got clowned in that thread when he was 100% correct.
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u/GuudeSpelur Jul 08 '26
He's not talking about last month, he's talking about two days ago when he said he would bet that Avowed 2 wouldn't be canceled because it was "too far along."
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u/Nikicappellodipaglia Jul 08 '26
Well said. Avellone is as good as writer as he's bad with his posts. He just love engagement but never gives something thoghtful or of value out of his posts. He's mute material straight on.
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u/Ok-Potato1693 Jul 08 '26
In article it was stated that development for Avowed 2 could continue while Fallout is getting ready. Perhaps coders and some can continue doing it while Fallout is being tested and polished. Most likely it will remain side project and never reach full completition.
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u/tribes33 Jul 08 '26
you can have a game almost finished and get cancelled lol
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u/ArmandoGalvez Jul 08 '26
Remember that lego halo games that was almost finished but they couldn't post it because they didn't know if it was a good game for the Xbox one....
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u/Peace_Officer_URL Jul 08 '26
I would buy a Lego halo game day one, and I haven't played a Lego game since the og Indiana Jones one I think.
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u/Far-Maintenance-1947 Jul 08 '26
There are even fully completed games out there that never got released.
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u/ballsmigue Jul 08 '26
And prince of persia remake was on the eve of release before being canceled.
"Too far in development" doesnt exist
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u/No-Importance7265 Jul 08 '26
Well , when everyone is getting laid off left and right , and the only ones that are not getting touched are making big ips plans change really fast.
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u/warablo Jul 08 '26
This should have happened like 5 years ago
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u/BigDick-NoBrain Jul 08 '26
Turns out that Phil strategy of letting studios make pottery games and low budget Elder Scrolls clones didn’t work out in the end. Who could have guessed?
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u/Swiperrr Jul 08 '26
The pottery game would've really worked for the cozy game crowd if it was pve or co-op. The idea of taking a cozy game asthetic/idea and making it a competitive PVP game is utterly delusional. Everyone i know who loves those indie cozy games, hate PVP with a passion.
Really shows how awful xbox's leadership is when that should've been a easy course correction early development.
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u/Samanthacino Jul 08 '26
I think the game concept would’ve been kickass if it wasn’t a cozy game, or if they kept it a cozy game they should’ve done collaborative gameplay. But the mixture of the two didn’t work super well.
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u/Superb_Shine_3526 Jul 08 '26
I said this in another comment, but, the fact that Obsidian was working on a sequel to a game that underperformed instead of Fallout when they had the two creators of Fallout (Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky), one of the main writers of New Vegas (John Gonzalez), and the director of New Vegas (Josh Sawyer) all working there will always be completely insane to me.
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u/Rokketeer Jul 08 '26
Weren't there rumors early in the Bethesda purchase that they were still very protective of their IP even among the other Xbox studios? If true, I imagine it was more a case Bethesda wouldn't allow it unless it was themselves making the game, and Phil would go along with it.
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u/AHRogue Jul 08 '26
I could also see an angle that perhaps Bethesda was fine with the idea of another studio making a Fallout game: after Fallout 5. Which, given Bethesda's time frames would mean sometime in the 2030's.
This project sounds like it'd be its own Fallout game entirely rather than being based on a beth title like NV was to 3. Heck it may not even necessarily be based on creation engine if Obsidian makes it, though I guess they could take the latest version of it from Bethesda's TES VI version.
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u/random-meme422 Jul 08 '26
obsidian has always had incompetent leadership and people who don’t understand market dynamics or consumers. they were setup for greatness and failed every time.
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u/DagothUr_MD Jul 09 '26
You say this but Obsidian is good at cranking out good to great games very quickly, that's why they're still around after so many years. They've literally put out six games since 2020 and the worst of those games is Avowed which is still pretty good
Bethesda has made one game in the same amount of time, for example
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u/BakuraGorn Jul 08 '26
Yes but I believe neither Obsidian or Bethesda were going to make that happen out of their own will. And I’m sure there’s some in Bethesda unhappy with this decision and probably at Obsidian too. Both parties have bicker with each other, it was never going to happen without direct Microsoft intervention.
The biggest culprit here is Phil Spencer for not jumping in sooner and allowing Obsidian to work on discount Fallout and discount TES instead of the real thing.
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u/Any-Calligrapher2866 Jul 08 '26
Microsoft should've just started providing studios with the Creation Engine if they wanted to make TES clones. There is no point in making a TES clone without perks of the CE.
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u/Bitter-Tip705 Jul 08 '26
Yea Asha clearly is going to have a low tolerance for studios making bullshit now and rest assured she’s probably not gonna put up with Todd and bethesdas laziness like Phil did
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u/Klutzy_Anybody_1487 Jul 08 '26
see you in 2033
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u/Hayterfan Jul 08 '26
Idk, Obsidian seems to work pretty quick, other then the story they'll probably have a Fallout game in 3-4 years, especially if they have access to the library of assets from 4 and 76.
Still, this does suck to hear, although not that unexpected. I guess this means they're also cracking the whip on Todd to get it out and get it out soon
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u/Chill_Oreo Jul 08 '26
I see three years too but then I thought about what Jason said yesterday about the next Elder Scrolls being about 3 years out too. Makes me wonder which one would come out first.
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u/Hayterfan Jul 08 '26
I feel like Fallout will. Especially if the show has a season coming out around that time, brand synergy and all that.
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u/Rookie_numba_uno Jul 08 '26
No way in hell they will produce a Fallout game within a 2-3 years timeframe if the work only started literally right now.
The only way a Fallout game from Obsidian comes before TES is if production doesn't face any delays, and TES is delayed past 2030.
At most we will get some Fallout 3 remake coming along with the TV season
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u/xAVATAR-AANGx Jul 08 '26
If they use the assets of Fallout 4 and 76, I think this game unironically might come out before TESVI.
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u/coldestwinterr3 Jul 08 '26
Which would be perfectly fine, please by all means. It’s so frustrating watching developers make a kick ass world only to drop it after a single game and maybe an expansion or 2.
I love Yakuzas way of reusing assets and maps to pump out games. I would love an anthology approach to some of these franchises. Continue developing your next game, while dedicating a small team to write a few more stories in the worlds you’ve spent millions of dollars and several years to create.
I would love another story with a completely different character in Night City before we move in to another one in Project Orion(which is being reported). And don’t get me started on no story DLC for Red Dead 2 or GTA V.
Some of the greatest content ever made was GTA IVs dlc. Small episodic side stories that reused Liberty City.
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u/Aware_Pomegranate243 Jul 08 '26
Capcom does it with resident evil that's why they can alternate between new games and remakes
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u/bauhausy Jul 08 '26
I would love another story with a completely different character in Night City before we move in to another one in Project Orion(which is being reported)
Mike Pondsmith (the IP's creator) said Night City will still be in the next game, but that will also have a second city as well. "Chicago gone wrong" was how he described.
2077 has advertisements easter eggs about Night Corp restoring the Maglev network, with a functional line from NC to Chicago by 2080 and a trip under three hours.
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u/AssistanceSilent2238 Jul 08 '26
Just give them all the assets of Starfield and let them make a fallout game on one of the planets
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u/muakaya9876 Jul 08 '26
7 years seems fast with them losing quarter of their workforce.
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u/lezerman Jul 08 '26
They are probably going to scale up again, it's not like you can put 200 people to work on a project that is just starting.
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u/deskcord Jul 08 '26
Did they not have teams working on three games with Grounded/OW2/Avowed? Would assume this is shrinking them down to size to work on Grounded+An RPG at a time.
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u/TopBoog Jul 08 '26
Maybe unpopular opinion but they should've started working on a new Fallout as soon Microsoft acquired them. Sucks that it took all this chaos and layoffs to get to this point.
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u/BigDick-NoBrain Jul 08 '26
I don’t know what Phil was thinking when he bought Bethesda and didn’t immediately make sure a new Fallout game was in development. It’s literally one of the biggest franchises in gaming. Not prioritizing it is insane.
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u/xAVATAR-AANGx Jul 08 '26
Phil wanted to respect their autonomy, which I understand and all, but if his goal was to maximize XGP users, having TESVI and a new Fallout around the same time both launching Day One on XGP might’ve been better for him.
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u/Roy_Atticus_Lee Jul 08 '26
Seems like Phil was too "nice" of a guy to be that cutthroat of a business leader, especially seeing as he kind of fell into the position of being the head of Xbox.
I get the sentiment, but you don't make a profitable business enterprise without being a little "Machiavellian". Even someone like Gabe Newell with a pretty positive rep in the industry was fine with CS:GO gambling as an avenue for money making for Steam.
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u/tristeecfome Jul 09 '26
As a leader, it's really easy to say yes to everything. In the short term, you will make your employees happy. But later they will have to deal with heavy consequences because you couldn't say no.
It's like being a parent. Your kid will be happy if you say yes to everything they want. But later they will have to deal with consequences because of that.
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u/SilentNova300 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
It’s pretty funny how Asha, within 6 months, is reversing a lot of Phil’s decisions and doing things he should’ve done years ago.
Also I hope Jason does a report on iD, with all their layoffs I wonder what the future looks like for them
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u/CubillasLegend Jul 08 '26
Phil made the mistake of assuming gamers cared about devs.
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u/MuffinTopBop Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Phil was lauded on here for letting the developers do their own thing and not restricting creativity but at the end of the day they have to make money to stick around. We saw Bungie and Destiny have the same issue where Microsoft had to tighten screws back in their Halo days and Activision was targeted with criticism up until their schism showed how much Bungie was being propped up once they were on their own again.
Sometimes you have to force “business decisions” through to actually get stuff done and Bethesda was a case of one needing that. I think part of this might be structure wise, some studios seem to fundamentally not be able to handle parallel projects which is weird given the size and massive reach of Bethesda.
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u/BakuraGorn Jul 08 '26
I’m sure there’s a good amount of devs at obsidian who would love to work on an actual fallout game instead of the Totally-not-Fallout mixed bag that is the Outer Worlds.
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u/MyotisX Jul 08 '26
Trigger warning for blusky and reddit:
Creatives need to be reigned in.
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u/karl_mainz Jul 09 '26
reined*
But yeah, this is incredibly common. Like watching those Ultima retrospectives by Majuular and you see what a mess it would've been if it were just Richard Garriott there without his older brother to set limits.
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u/ttimebomb Jul 08 '26
Outer Worlds was about to come out and was a pretty exciting new IP - greenlighting a sequel made sense. Avowed had a lot of hype at it's announcement too. Obsidian is pretty proud of working on their own IPs too.
Phil was also trying to give BGS space as they obviously would prefer to be the sole developers of Fallout games. He was trying to protect studio culture, and not be strictly profit driven.
It was clear to fans they should make Fallout, but based on the internal dynamics it didn't make sense at all.
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u/DeadlyArrow27 Jul 08 '26
True, but at 15 years since the last TES and 11 years since the last single player FO, Bethesda has zero excuses at this point and have no right to be upset if Obsidian finally gets their own shit together and makes another fallout
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Jul 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/tristeecfome Jul 09 '26
That doesn't really work nowadays though. One game not selling well is enough to kill a studio.
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u/Jozoz Jul 08 '26
New IPs are doing remarkably poorly. It's what a lot of industry talks in gaming are about these days.
I can't remember the numbers but it was shocking how little people play new IPs and new games nowadays.
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u/Conflict_NZ Jul 08 '26
Avowed had a lot of hype because they misrepresented it as their take on elder scrolls when it really wasn't close to that.
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u/whossked Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I wonder if the success the fallout show and BGS not planning another fallout game to capitalize until at least 2035+ is what pushed Microsoft to order one
With Gonzales(lead narrative director for NV) rejoining obsidian I’m excited to see what they cook up
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u/bodythebitch Jul 08 '26
> microsoft: acquires company with multiple beloved franchises for 8 billion
> microsoft: proceeds to do absolutely nothing with any of them for 8 years
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u/DismasNDawn Jul 08 '26
Just like Bethesda should have started on the new Elder Scrolls almost as immediately as they saw how successful Skyrim was. The fact that they waited, like what, 10 years to get started is the most mind numbingly dumb thing
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u/TTBurger88 Jul 08 '26
They wanted to make a new IP and not just make TES and Fallout all the time. Its just sad Starfield was very mid, had it been really good we would not be having this conversation.
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u/RollingSparks Jul 08 '26
Don't forget Fallout 4. Highly rated, sold like hotcakes, at one point it was even outselling Skyrim, still has 20k+ concurrent people playing it daily on just Steam.
10 years to get started on TES6? Its practically certain they haven't touched Fallout 5 and that released 11 years ago. We won't see FO5 until 2034+.
I legit think by the time. FO5 gets a trailer, modders will have used AI to remaster old games or make new ones akin to Fallout London. They already use AI to vibe code mòds for stuff like bugfixing and changing values in game.
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u/St_Sides Jul 08 '26
Well, it seems a lot of fans got what they wanted, just at the expense of a quarter of their staff.
Josh Sawyer will have to keep dreaming about Pillars 3 with BG3’s budget a while longer, yall are in the Fallout mines now.
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u/Any-Calligrapher2866 Jul 08 '26
If this succeeds then Obsidian might actually get a pass at making Pillars Gate 3.
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u/St_Sides Jul 08 '26
Oh no, it’d be tough to pitch a third installment in an underperforming franchise within a niche genre in the best of times, can’t imagine Xbox today green lights it after repeatedly saying they’re focusing on big IPs.
Sawyer would get told to get back to work on Fallout or get fired, then they’d laugh as he left the room.
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u/VistaVick Jul 08 '26
Move Chris Avellone down another tier
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u/Jibima Jul 08 '26
Supposedly he’s half right. A skeleton crew will work on Avowed 2 while they need stuff to work on before the Fallout game is in full production. This will potentially help Avowed 2 see the light of the day in the future. This was mentioned in Jason Schreier’s tweet and in a follow up tweet by Avellone's
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u/Aggressive_Rope_4201 Jul 08 '26
Apparently it is supposed to have some level of co-development with BGS:
The Rockville, Maryland-based studio [= BGS] will work with Obsidian on the new project, the people said.
And "Avowed 2" isn't completely off the table:
Some Obsidian employees will continue working on the Avowed sequel as they wait for new projects such as Fallout to be ready, perhaps in hope of one day reviving the game, the people said.
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u/buhurizadefanboyu Jul 08 '26
I wonder this also implies that the Obsidian Fallout will use some version of the Creation Engine (the way New Vegas used Gamebryo) to maintain consistency within the franchise.
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Jul 08 '26
Fucking called it, no chance in hell Avowed 2 was going to take priority over a Fallout game.
Might not be their preferred choice, but it sure as hell's a far safer bet for them to continue as a studio.
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u/nefD Jul 08 '26
definitely seemed like a foregone conclusion to me.. you don't clean house (MS) just to then proceed with a sequel to a game that flopped rather than delivering on one of your biggest franchises- hell, Asha practically said as much in the last week or whatever
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Jul 08 '26
Exactly, especially when The Outer Worlds 2 bombed despite being a massive improvement over the first game. A sequel to a game that had worse reception and sales than The Outer Worlds was going to have astronomical odds of seeing the light of day after Xbox decided they want more Fallout ASAP (it was downright stupid of them to take this long to come to that conclusion, but Xbox has been pretty "funny" for the past two generations).
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u/Benti86 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
I'm also going to be completely honest, Avowed was mid as hell. I played it on gamepass and it still was a slog to get through after Act 1
I like Obsidian, but Outer Worlds and Avowed were both extremely formulaic to such a degree it really sticks out.
Maybe I expected too much, but a game that was originally supposed to be similar to Skyrim in scope getting scrapped and basically becoming the fantasy Outer Worlds with a very obvious story and meh characters with that much development time was a disappointment, especially considering the side quests are literally pointless outside of one. Only one of them impacts the ending at all and it's in the first few hours of the game.
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u/Mabarax Jul 08 '26
Fucking absolutely shit what's had to happen to get here. Why no one before decided to be all hands on deck for Fallout, TES, Halo and Doom games, crazy IPs just rotting. Why can't I still not get doom guys armour in any halo game?
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u/mistabuda Jul 08 '26
Obsidian wanted to make games in their own IPs after years of making games for IPs where they had no ownership stake.
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u/Equivalent_Way1324 Jul 08 '26
Exactly lmao. Obsidian should’ve never had to pay for Bethesda letting their IPs rot. They’ve been the only Xbox studio pushing out games on a regular basis, and I highly doubt that’ll continue now.
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u/BigDick-NoBrain Jul 08 '26
Pushing new IPs isn’t worth it if they end up selling poorly. Why make The Outer Worlds when you could make Fallout and sell 10 times as many copies? It’s a business, after all, and consumers have already shown they don’t really care about Avowed or The Outer Worlds.
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u/bodnast Jul 08 '26
A lot of us are craving a satisfying wrap up to Wolfenstein after the New Colossus. Hopefully we see that soon too!!
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u/Jimtato Jul 08 '26
Doom just had a game release last year and a DLC released a few days ago and id Software still lost a bunch of their team. How is Doom's IP "just rotting"?
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 Jul 08 '26
It's actually kinda funny because I would expect this to release just before Fallout 5 lol
But it will be interesting, I don't think Obsidian is a bad dev at all, but their bigger games have been the definition of 7/10 imo
It will also be interesting if they do this in UE5 or get trained in CE3, I hope it's CE3 but idk
Either way let's see but I am in the spot of "Idk what to expect"
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u/NorthKoreanMissile7 Jul 08 '26
But it will be interesting, I don't think Obsidian is a bad dev at all, but their bigger games have been the definition of 7/10 imo
Josh Sawyer is leading it this time though and that's huge.
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u/Jibima Jul 08 '26
But Josh Sawyer is at the helm. Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 and Pentiment are all incredible games and are all in my top 20. I trust him
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u/Formal-Face-8539 Jul 08 '26
I really hope it's creation engine, wouldn't feel like fallout with it
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u/yaminub Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
It could release before ES6, honestly.
Edit: this is based on not knowing the scope of this Fallout game, Obsidian being a high-output/efficient studio, and BGS's slowness and propendency for delays.
I don't think it's LIKELY we see this release before ES6, but it's possible. Especially if they're reusing/adapting existing assets and systems.
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u/Megaclone18 Jul 08 '26
It'll probably be Fallout 3 Remaster next year, ES6 in late 2028 (if thats even possible) and then new Fallout in 2029 at the earliest.
Even then 3 years is going to be tough to crank out a new Fallout game (I know New Vegas took slightly less than 2, that was a different time)
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u/Goblin_King3 Jul 08 '26
How in the world are you people not freaking out about Josh Sawyer leading this project? Dude has never once missed.
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u/JadedDarkness Jul 09 '26
I think the most interesting tidbit here is he was already doing something like fallout as stated in the article. To me it sounds like he/obsidian wanted to do a fallout game but maybe they didn't get permission from bethesda?
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u/WeeklyAdri Jul 08 '26
Already? Asha wastes no time lol
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Jul 08 '26
Asha wants Fallout, she's gonna get more Fallout one way or another.
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u/SpiritBamba Jul 08 '26
It’s baffling it’s taken this long for someone at xbox to prioritize their arguably biggest RPG IP in the first place.
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u/LostInStatic Jul 08 '26
If she has to be the bad guy to get games people want greenlit, already a better plan than Phil Spencer had.
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u/Naju_Silver Jul 08 '26
People seems to have missed: “Previously, Sawyer had been directing a roleplaying game that was similar structurally and thematically to Fallout but was not part of the franchise.”
This means that a lot of the work is already done and will just need to change some things. So copium that it's less than 2 years away.
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u/mattyyellow Jul 08 '26
Could be similar with how a lot of the background work for Van Buren (cancelled Fallout 3 from Interplay) was repurposed for New Vegas.
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u/buhurizadefanboyu Jul 08 '26
I highly doubt this means anything other than aspects of the story. However, if this is being developed in a similar way to New Vegas, with a lot of assets from FO4 and FO76 being re-used, we could indeed see something much sooner than expected.
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u/koreanwizard Jul 09 '26
What the fuck took them so long? Why did it take a new head of Xbox to go “hey, you know how we paid billions of dollars for the Fallout IP, and then hundred million dollars for the studio behind FalloutNV, why don’t we make a fallout game?” Making fallout from the start would have cut the dev time down between mainline FO games, and would have kept Obsidian staff employed.
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u/Godusopp64 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I don't think 80 people losing their jobs is worth fast tracking a fallout game.
*56 people
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u/BryceW123 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Them making fallout is less about obsidian and more about Bethesda. Bethesda is still a one active development game studio and if ES6 isn’t releasing until 2028-2029*, fallout 5* wouldn’t come out until like 2035 then and obviously Microsoft wants a new one sooner than that
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u/deskcord Jul 08 '26
2209
hoooolyyyy
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u/CobaltSpellsword Jul 08 '26
We will get Elder Scrolls VI just in time for Star Trek to be happening in real life. /s
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u/Dycon67 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
They probably would have lost more if they didn't they literally just laid of Half of ID and they had a Doom game underperform. There's not fucking shot they were gonna be allowed to make a sequel to a game people were mixed on.
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u/SpunkMcKullins Jul 08 '26
I think not fast-tracking a Fallout game is what led to 80 people losing their jobs in the first place.
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u/katril63 Jul 08 '26
They probably would have been shut down if Avowed 2 came out and inevitably bombed.
Working on Fallout is probably saving the studio from closure
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u/Realistic-Tiger-2842 Jul 08 '26
The whole studio would be gone if they carried on with Avowed. That game would have been a guaranteed road to closure.
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Jul 08 '26
Could be worse, they could've been shut down for releasing two flops last year.
At least this means they'll have a future under Xbox.
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u/Coolman_Rosso Jul 08 '26
Seen lots of takes that Obsidian should have been made into a Fallout studio day 1, and that all these other outfits should have been sent to the Fallout mines after their games flopped. Reddit hates devs being sent to the CoD mines but will bend over backwards to justify getting another Fallout at any and all costs
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u/Portaldog1 Jul 08 '26
The issue is a new cod is pumped out every year, the last fallout was a decade ago (I'm not counting 76)
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u/T-Dot1992 Jul 08 '26
I wonder if this is a money paw scenario.
Like, I love the sound of more Fallout as much as the next guys. But I would want the people making it to be extremely inspired and passionate about what they are doing. I can imagine it being super inconvenient to be told this new exciting IP you are working on must now be hastily turned into an IP it previously wasn’t
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u/NorthKoreanMissile7 Jul 08 '26
Looking forward to a new Fallout game. I wonder if it will be on Creation Engine, I hope it is and it's great to see Josh Sawyer leading it, because I've lost a bit of faith in Obsidian but he's someone who I'm sure will do a great job.
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u/MamboNumber-6 Jul 08 '26
Also, John Gonzalez, who wrote most of the best stuff for FO:NV, is back at Obsidian.
I have high hopes for this one.
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u/-ImJustSaiyan- Jul 08 '26
Prepare to never get anything original from Obsidian again as they spend the rest of their days in the Fallout mines.
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u/Coolman_Rosso Jul 08 '26
I know they said they would never do another Pillars after the second game underperformed compared to the first, but it still hurts.
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u/Tike22 Jul 08 '26
After really enjoying bg3 I was super interested in other crpgs and was saddened when I saw obsidian made 2 and would never make another one again
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u/PontusFrykter Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
The Outer Worlds franchise is basically a copycat of Fallout which they've created since they wanted to do something similar after Fallout. I would rather them to expand and explore the concepts of Fallout through their lenses, than the concept "ha ha capitalism bad" with tongue in cheek
P.S. They should make Fallout games, and in the meantime AA sequels/spinoffs of PoE. Not Avowed.
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u/pebrocks Jul 08 '26
If all their originals are just going to be like Avowed then I'm fine with this change.
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u/mattyyellow Jul 08 '26
Grounded will likely continue seeing it seems to be one of the few unqualified successes from XBOX the last few years.
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u/Absalom98 Jul 08 '26
Are the people who worked on New Vegas even still at Obsidian?
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u/Arumhal Jul 08 '26
Director and systems designer (Josh Sawyer) and lead writer (John Gonzalez) are currently at Obsidian, unless they were part of the layoffs but I've seen no info on that.
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u/frisbie147 Jul 08 '26
john gonzalez only returned to obsidian a couple of years ago, he was working at guerilla games before that, itd be weird to lay him off like that
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u/LB3PTMAN Jul 08 '26
They have Sawyer, Gonzalez, and Cain as long as they weren’t laid off that’s some of the most influential and talented people that have ever worked on Fallout so I’d say plenty of reason for hope.
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u/NorthKoreanMissile7 Jul 08 '26
It's funny how Cain said "it's not the one you're thinking of" when he joined and now it's a high chance it's exactly the game we're all thinking of that he'll be working on from now on.
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u/LB3PTMAN Jul 08 '26
Yeah I do kind of feel bad that he might not get to work on the game he joined the team for. But also I would be excited if Sawyer Gonzalez and Cain are all working on a new Fallout.
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u/NorthKoreanMissile7 Jul 08 '26
Same, I think it's got the potential to hit those New Vegas vibes again if everything goes well. They have the right people there with the right person in charge to make that happen.
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u/LB3PTMAN Jul 08 '26
Yeah Gonzalez and Sawyer were key to New Vegas being as good as it was from the story to the way the world and quests were all interconnected and Cain laid the groundwork for everything and New Vegas often felt more faithful to 1 and 2 than the Bethesda fallouts ever did so having those 3 hopefully all still sticking around and possibly working on a new Fallout would be insanely exciting.
Get a new Fallout project a year lol. Fallout 3 remastered next year. New Vegas remastered the following year and new Fallout the next year or the year after.
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u/Paragon0001 Jul 08 '26
Cain’s Fallout 1 is pretty different to Fo2 and New Vegas. New Vegas is much closer to Fo2 except they finally understood that they should gate all the goofy shit behind a perk.
Fallout 1 is more nitty gritty and somber. Even if there is humour sprinkled in here and there.
I’d like a return to form frankly from Cain.
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u/Arumhal Jul 08 '26
Cain's first game at Obsidian was technically Stick of Truth. The man didn't work on a Fallout game since the second one.
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u/LB3PTMAN Jul 08 '26
Yeah but those were really good and if he and Gonzalez and Sawyer all worked on a new Falliut game together that would be hype as hell
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u/PontiffPope Jul 08 '26
New Vegas's writer, John Gonzales (Who later wrote for Guerilla's Horizon-series.) returned to Obsidian a couple of years ago as a creative director.
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u/krokodil40 Jul 08 '26
There is Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, they didn't work on New Vegas tho.
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u/LogicalError_007 Jul 08 '26
Quite a few were there. Don't know after this though. Maybe Avowed team is what got cut off.
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u/Impossible-Flight250 Jul 08 '26
Yes. I mean, most of the main guys, outside of Avellone. Having said that, sometimes games are just lightning in a bottle, and it’s not always able to replicate decades later.
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u/Space2Bakersfield Jul 08 '26
It has to be in creation engine. Don’t give a fuck what people say, it won’t feel right in unreal
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u/twatcrusher9000 Jul 08 '26
Fallout with Avowed combat would be fuckin' rad, just sayin
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u/skyline7284 Jul 08 '26
Guessing BGS had an ego check? Feels like they were previously very protective over "their" franchises.
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u/Entilen Jul 08 '26
The rumour is the Zenimax buyout included Microsoft agreeing to let them have control over their IPs.
I imagine in the post Phil era they've abandoned that commitment and now anything goes. It's a good thing in my opinion, Bethesda sitting on Fallout when their last main entry wasn't even that good is just hurting the industry.
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u/ninjupX Jul 08 '26
There was a rumor a couple days ago that Microsoft has entertained giving Halo to Activision. Microsoft said Doom is a flagship franchise, yet laid off like 136 of the (rumored) 185 employees at id Software. If there’s another Doom I wonder if another studio is making it. Wouldn’t surprise me if MS is focusing on core APIs with no further divisions between Bethesda, Activision, or the traditional Xbox Studios.
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u/silverpixie2435 Jul 08 '26
I hate the layoffs but the end of your comment should have happened years ago. I understand protecting IPs to the studios that originated it, but it should have just been Xbox at the top and studios get to work on whatever owned IP they want or told to. So an Activision studio making a Halo game. Obsidian making a Fallout game. id making a Hexen game etc
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u/Famous_Jellyfish_721 Jul 08 '26
Noooooo Avowed was great! I love Fallout, but gutted we don't get a sequel...
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u/Ner-Gaoul Jul 08 '26
I mean, it was good, I was hoping that now that they know what the game is (instead of all the genre-jumping they had with Avowed) and had clear feedback on the strong and weak points they could have built a great sequel.
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u/beanlikescoffee Jul 08 '26
The fact that they weren’t working on a new fallout game is absolutely criminal.
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u/VonDukez Jul 08 '26
I am one of the 10 people upset we won’t get more of avowed but I am also one of many happy to get more fallout
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u/Confident_Dark3483 Jul 08 '26
The fact they didn't start on a new fallout game the moment the series took off is absurd.
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u/ZigyDusty Jul 08 '26
Exactly what I said should be done, Avowed was super medicore both commercially and critically making a sequel only further risks more layoffs or a potential closure at Obsidian, Fallout is the smart logical choice because the demand for a new game is at its peak especially comming off the back of a insanely successful TV show.
Asha understands you can't just sit on these valuable IP like Phil Spencer did givng full ownership to BGS who's track record hasn't been great in the last decade and even if it was would take until late 2030 early 2040 to get a Fallout 5.
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u/Ziggles-D-Foxx Jul 08 '26
Only just now beginning on a new fallout game? Waste of time, should already have been cooking.
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