Bethesda provides studio update on its franchises

For the past decade and a half, one question has been at the forefront of gamers' minds: what the absolute hell is Bethesda Game Studios up to? Although no AAA dev cycle could ever reasonably be accused of being snappy, Bethesda's apparent inability or unwillingness to do anything with two of the biggest RPG franchises in the industry has been a source of great frustration and speculation alike.

Granted, it's not like Bethesda hasn't been doing anything. Fallout and The Elder Scrolls have both spawned online-only spinoffs contracted out to satellite studios. Oblivion got a similarly contracted-out remaster, which was great if you had a computer that could handle its intensely demanding graphics. As far as singleplayer content Bethesda actually made themselves, though? Starfield came out a few years ago to middling reviews, and that was basically it. At time of writing, the last mainline Fallout and Elder Scrolls games launched 11 and 15 years ago respectively, which was supposedly enough to get Microsoft, the studio's parent company, to start asking those questions too.

On the tail of a long series of Xbox layoffs that doubtlessly left BGS a bit shook, the studio has taken to social media to finally provide a comprehensive update on, indeed, what exactly they're doing. It shouldn't have taken this long to get a bit of transparency out of ol' Todd, but that's neither here nor there.

While you can read the statement in full at the link above, most of it is fairly standard boilerplate about continuing to support Fallout 76 and ESO except for a few bombshells dropped in rapid succession.

First and most shocking, those Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters that have been leaked and rumored time and time again are, indeed, real. Just like Oblivion, I'd expect an Unreal 5 graphics wrapper applied directly over the original games, which while not exactly revolutionary will make them look very pretty (again, if you can run it.) No dates for those, which will be a bit of a trend here.

Headliner numbet two: Obsidian's rumored Fallout project has also officially been confirmed, which is very good news for New Vegas fans (and honestly, people who like good Fallout games in general.) While we're still years out from seeing it, I'm excited that the best dev team to ever handle the franchise is getting another crack at it.

Finally, Bethesda popped up to say "yeah, we're still working on The Elder Scrolls 6." The very long-awaited sequel to Skyrim currently only exists as a thirty-second teaser that had its eighth birthday this year, and they couldn't even rustle up a new screenshot to attach to the post, just a limp "it's on the way!" I'll believe it when I see it, Todd.

Even so, it seems there's plenty of Bethesda to look forward to in the next few years… but I just wish there'd been any in all the years prior.

The post Bethesda provides "studio update" on its franchises appeared first on Boing Boing.