The Bethesda director is repeatedly rumored to despise Obsidian for their success with Fallout: New Vegas. Now he himself is dispelling the rumor.
Fallout: New Vegas is considered by many fans to be the best installment in the series. While Bethesda was primarily responsible for developing the games from part 3 onwards, in the case of New Vegas, the company merely acted as publisher. The studio that held the creative reins here was Obsidian Entertainment.
The fact that the best Fallout game did not come from Bethesda led to a persistent rumor: Bethesda and Fallout boss Todd Howard, who has been with the company since 1994, harbor a grudge against Obsidian. But that could hardly be further from the truth, as Howard now suggests in an interview.
Skyrim is to blame
In conversation with Game Informer (paywall), Howard opens up about the situation Bethesda found itself in before development began on New Vegas. Fallout 3 had just been released and was a success, so there was no question that a sequel had to be made. But Howard and the rest of the Bethesda development team had their hands full with Skyrim.
What do you do in a situation like that? You find another team to take over development of the new Fallout game—in this case, Obsidian. Howard says:
They were the only choice. They had done something similar with [Star Wars] Knights of the Old Republic 2, and we knew them very well. We knew we were going to continue with Skyrim, the series was back. But we also knew there would be a long break until Fallout 4 – how could we keep things going?
As Obsidian’s lead designer John Gonzales adds, the team already had Fallout DNA anyway. Obsidian Entertainment was founded by former Black Isle developers who had created Fallout 1 and 2.
So Bethesda had the utmost confidence in the studio. As Howard explains, the team was given only one instruction: New Vegas had to include faction-based gameplay. Gonzales adds that one of the game’s greatest strengths was “its unrelenting focus on gameplay with decisions and consequences.”
It is probably the combination of both that makes New Vegas so special. In the end, both parties certainly benefited from the success of the role-playing game.
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