Bethesda Has a Big Problem on Its Hands With Fallout 5

Bethesda and Bethesda Game Studios have a problem on their hands with Fallout 5. This month we reported on how Starfield highlights a major problem with the video game development industry: that AAA games have become too expensive to make. One of the reasons they are too expensive to make is because they take too long to make. This is evident by how long it took Bethesda Game Studios to make Starfield, its most recent release. We don't know when exactly the game began full production, but we know the game was in a playable state by 2018, so it was a bit before this. Despite this, it didn't come out until 2023. 

Right now, The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development, with full production beginning in the summer of last year. It will be years before it releases. It's not going to come out in 2025, or 2026. If Elder Scrolls fans are lucky it will be out in 2027, but it wouldn't be surprising if we don't see it until after this. Whatever the case, one thing is true, Fallout 5 is very far away, and this a problem. 

Next year Fallout 4 will turn 10 years old. By the time Fallout 5 releases, at this rate, Fallout 4 will be closer to two decades old. That is an insane gap for such a popular series, made worse by the fact it is not going to capitalize on the popularity of Amazon's new Fallout TV show, which will no doubt be gone or on its way out by then. 

It is also a problem because not only is the Fallout audience getting older each day, progressively aging out of the hobby, but there won't be a major new game to make new fans out of a newer generation. Think about it, by the time Fallout 5 releases, one year olds when Fallout 4 comes out will probably be old enough to legally drink. That is a whole generation missed. 

Of course, Bethesda can buy time and such with a spin-off from a different studio, namely Fallout New Vegas 2 from Obsidian Entertainment, but the idea that we are even pondering the idea that we won't be playing the next mainline Fallout game until the 2030s shows that something has to change. To this end, Xbox has reportedly identified that this is a problem, but if the problem is only being identified now, it is being identified too late.