In an interview published today, Bethesda’s creative director Todd Howard revealed the studio’s future plans, explaining that after the Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, the studio’s next game will be Fallout 5, the next main entry in the company’s post-apocalyptic open-world RPG franchise. However, considering how long it takes Bethesda to make these big games, don’t expect either RPG to launch any time in the near future.
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During an interview with IGN, Howard laid out very clearly and openly what Bethesda Game Studios was going to be working on for the next few years. Specifically, the plan currently is to wrap up 2023’s Starfield and begin working more on the next entry in its Elder Scrolls series, Elder Scrolls 6, which Howard explained is currently in pre-production. Then, after that, the studio will focus on Fallout 5.
“Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production,” explained Howard. “And, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so our slate’s pretty full going forward for a while.”
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Interestingly, Howard also said that Bethesda Game Studios has some “other projects” that the team looks at “from time to time as well” but didn’t elaborate on what those games are, how far along they might be, or where they could fall in the production timeline.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Howard has talked about Fallout 5. In fact, this isn’t even the first time he has talked to IGN about the next game in the popular RPG series. Last year, during a different interview with the outlet, Howard explained that the studio had a rough idea of what Fallout 5 would be, but didn’t elaborate more or share any details about the game.
“Fallout’s really part of our DNA here,” Howard told IGN in 2021. “We’ve worked with other [developers] from time to time – I can’t say what’s gonna happen. You know, we have a one-pager on Fallout 5, what we want to do.”
However, back during that interview, Howard was less clear on the timeline. Now we know that Fallout 5 will indeed be released after Elder Scrolls 6. And that likely means Fallout 5 will be out around oh…let’s say, 2035. If you’re lucky.
Elder Scrolls 6 was first officially revealed during E3 2018 with a short teaser, and since then we’ve heard basically nothing else about the game. The last mainline Fallout game, Fallout 4, was released back in 2015.
Howard told IGN today that he wished they could make these games faster and that, like many of the studio’s biggest fans, he was frustrated about having to wait so many years between each game. But he explained it’s part of the process and is necessary.
“They do take a while, I wish they came out faster, I really do,” admitted Howard. “We’re trying as hard as we can, but we want them to be as best as they can be for everybody.”