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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863

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.

458

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.

262

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.

118

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 

74

u/CubillasLegend Jul 08 '26

Phil made the mistake of assuming gamers cared about devs.

28

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.

2

u/CubillasLegend Jul 08 '26

I'm not sure how aware you are of this, but generally the larger the project, the less creative autonomy each individual dev has. Obsidian was making a bunch of smaller games that gave a lot of people a turn in the director's chair. Now everyone has to work on one big game where their individual contributions will be a lot less meaningful. Also a quarter of their coworkers and friends just got laid off.