Bethesda maps out its future: Fallout 5, Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters, Obsidian Fallout game, and Todd Howard returns to Reddit

Bethesda Game Studios dropped a sweeping studio letter on July 17 laying out its roadmap for the next several years — confirming Fallout 5 in preproduction, remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, a new Fallout game in collaboration with Obsidian Entertainment, and continued work on both The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield. The announcement came in the wake of massive Xbox layoffs that cut 1,600 employees across the division, with another 1,600 expected before the end of the fiscal year — a restructuring that hit Bethesda and its ZeniMax siblings hard, including the closure of Arkane Studios.

The headline details: Fallout 5 and The Elder Scrolls 6 are both being built on Creation Engine 3, a shared technology platform Bethesda has been developing since Starfield's launch. Elder Scrolls 6 remains the studio's primary focus, with the majority of the team on it — Bethesda says it's "playing it every day" and is "where we planned to be." Fallout 5 is in preproduction and described as a "long-range destination." The Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters carry no release windows. Obsidian — the New Vegas developer — has been confirmed to be working with Bethesda on a new Fallout project, a move that reportedly required canceling an Avowed sequel. Fallout 76 gets a major expansion in 2027 called Raven Rock, a prequel story to Fallout 3. Starfield is getting new stories, gameplay improvements, and new Starborn-focused content in 2027. ZeniMax Online Studios, the team behind The Elder Scrolls Online, will also partner more closely with Bethesda on the Elder Scrolls franchise going forward. There will be no Fallout Day broadcast this year — instead, Bethesda is planning a live celebration in Washington, D.C. for the franchise's 30th anniversary in 2027.

The announcement lands at a pivotal moment for Bethesda. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's ongoing "reset" of Microsoft's gaming business is explicitly doubling down on core franchises, and for Bethesda that means more Elder Scrolls and Fallout, faster. The Fallout brand has enormous momentum right now thanks to Amazon's hit TV adaptation, and Skyrim has sold over 65 million copies in 15 years — so the pressure to deliver on both franchises is real. The Fallout 3 remaster had already been leaked in court documents from Microsoft's FTC battle over the Activision Blizzard acquisition back in 2023, so that one wasn't a total surprise. The Obsidian collaboration is the most intriguing wildcard: the studio made Fallout: New Vegas in 2010 and has a devoted fanbase, but it's only just been put on the project.

Todd Howard also made a rare Reddit appearance in r/games following the announcement, calling himself a "professional lurker" who reads the forum constantly and gets "great ideas" from it. His previous Reddit comment was six months ago — a one-liner about a Fallout 4 mod featuring a cardboard cutout of him. Fans responded to his new post immediately, with the top request being patches for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, which hasn't received a PC patch since July 2025 and still carries performance issues that worsen the longer you play. Oblivion Remastered has seen over 9 million players, so the calls to keep Virtuos actively supporting it aren't going away anytime soon.