Obsidian founder Feargus Urquhart has revealed his intentions to work on the new Fallout should the opportunity arise.
Obsidian hasn’t worked on Fallout since New Vegas in 2010, but many fans still consider this spinoff the best Fallout of today. After New Vegas, Bethesda Game Studios took over from Fallout and has since developed Fallout 4 and the controversial 76.
Fallout is a post-apocalyptic series in which you must face the nuclear wastelands of various American cities. The big advantage of this series is that its scenery, characters and story will change from game to game. But meeting frighteningly mutated non-humanoids like the aptly named Deathclaws or the macabre and decaying Yao Guai is a constant and always terrifyingly fun encounter.
The love for the game doesn’t stop with the Fallout community or me. In fact, Obsidian founder Feargus Urquhart also has strong feelings for the series. “I was at Interplay for probably an extra year because I wanted to work more on Fallout,” he said Urquhart in conversation with Dualshockers (opens in a new tab), “I love Fallout.” I love Fallout too, but wasn’t a fan of where it left off in recent years.
While I enjoyed Fallout 4 thanks to its vast map and sense of exploration. But after playing Fallout 76, I couldn’t stop thinking about Fallout New Vegas. It might be through the pink glass, but this game was what a modern Fallout game should be. While in the past Bethesda has tried to cram a linear campaign into an open-world RPG that made you feel heavily armed with the main storyline, Obsidian has taken a more fluid approach with a handful of storylines that are determined by factions and choices.
Pink tinted glasses
Obsidian can boast not only Fallout New Vegas. Recently, the developer released Grounded, a survival game that takes the exploration of your garden to a whole new level. Normally dealing with worms isn’t a big deal, but in Grounded you have to search for supplies and fight terrifying tanks after shrinking, so your average spider looks like an elephant. Grounded was a huge hit and most of the reviews on Steam are overwhelmingly positive. For example, I loved Grounded because it gave me a sense of danger and morbid curiosity that I fondly remember from Fallout New Vegas.
Morbid curiosity and adventure weren’t the only assets of New Vegas. Obsidian worked tirelessly to deliver a deep and engaging storyline with storylines that encouraged re-play. Thanks to faction systems, the routes from each event to the next are tailored to your character. This custom storyline provided a unique and autonomous adventure game that could be experienced over and over again.
I could mention the benefits of the faction system over the karma system Fallout games are known for, or how great the DLC was. But that’s for another time. Ultimately, Obsidian has shown a detailed attention to Fallout that I believe has been lost in recent years.
76 item
None of this means Bethesda can’t make great games. I think Starfield looks amazing and I very much hope Bethesda delivers this epic space adventure game. It looks like a breath of fresh air after the somewhat disastrous Fallout 76. There were many elements that made me fall in love with the game before I even played it.
As for Fallout 76’s premiere, I wasn’t very lucky. Infested with bugs and lighting so bright I thought I had died and was on my way to the afterlife. These issues made Fallout 76 difficult to play and meant I didn’t enjoy my experience wandering through these wastelands.
However, it wasn’t the mistakes that were the worst. Bethesda’s initial reaction of denial, excuses, and most importantly, getting players to buy upgrades at an overpriced nuclear store made me feel Fallout became a way to easily get money from fans who loved the series.
If Fallout has a chance to go back to a time when adventure and fans took priority over revenue, then I can’t wait to see what Obsidian does with the rotting wastelands and hideous monsters.