Recently, Microsoft’s gaming head, Phil Spencer, explained that a new Fallout game wasn’t made in tandem with the successful Fallout TV series on Prime Video, which has found a unique way to present the post-apocalyptic world to fans. Speaking at New York’s Paley International Summit, Spencer acknowledged the buzz around the show and said that instead of rolling out a new game, Microsoft allowed existing titles, including Fallout 76 and Fallout 4, to be brought back to life.
“This [decision] helps them come up with new stories and canon and doesn’t have to be in lockstep with the simultaneous release of a game,” Spencer said. He explained we didn’t have a new game for the launch. “We had some creative liberty with this that we wouldn’t have had if we put this together before we did the other project.”
Why Microsoft held back a new Fallout game after the TV show
Spencer added that the lack of a new game release offered “creative liberty,” allowing the Fallout TV series to add to the Fallout universe without directly influencing or being constrained by the game canon. The show runs after events in existing games, allowing showrunners to tell a new story without being so much in sync with the games’ timelines. However, Spencer stressed that lining up a new game with the series would necessitate a lot of time fixing the timeline.
Fallout fans are hungry for a new game, but Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard has assured that Fallout 5 is planned for a later date, and that’s successive to the release of The Elder Scrolls 6. At least with Microsoft and Bethesda, they’re not about rushing something into a new TV adaptation window to catch interest at the time.
With Season 2 of the Fallout series already in production, the timing of future seasons becomes left to those hoping they will coincide with the release of Fallout 5. However, Spencer and Howard haven’t lost sight that the next chapter in the iconic franchise will have to be handled with care.
Image credit: Fallout
