Games

..."it is obviously difficult to deal with when you're going back to an area where a game had multiple endings."

No, Howard. What you are finding difficult is to have any particular vision for a game beyond its literal systems and gameplay loops. You resent New Vegas because people care about it, and nobody cares about 76.

If you have a story you want to tell, you make choices that serve that vision; the problem is Todd doesn't have one. He bought a franchise built on evocative storytelling and biting commentary and decided its best use is for players to bash virtual action figures together.

"Like, where do you draw the line between what's true and what's not true?" he said. "What we tend to do is, the most truthful thing is what people saw on the screen, right? That's the most truth. And then things that are written officially along with the games are kinda second truth. And then, other things that are written or done outside of that—spin-off things, or somebody answering on the internet—those things are kinda third place.

...Huh, what??? I can understand him wanting New Vegas to have lower priority in terms of canon in comparison to games made by Bethesda, but why the hell would he want a TV show's canonicity to be above the actual source material, and the one that they themselves made on top of that?????

Lol this article goes out of its way to try and tamp down the New Vegas controversy.

A) no it's not a stretch to look at the chalkboard in the show and see that the dates do not line up with new vegas' timeline.

B) Josh Sawyer didn't say he didn't care what they did with fallout because he actually didn't care but because he has had to make peace with the fact that he doesn't control it anymore

C) Tim Cain said he loved the look and feel of the world in the show, not the plot elements or then retconning NV, and basically just said maybe the whiteboard is a lie / I don't control it anymore so I'm not going to publicly criticize it but posted links to the timeline descrepencies.

Ha, as if Obsidian would work on another fallout when they didn't get paid for the last one.

If they make games who take place outside of the US. They don’t have to hear about how they broke the lore. But Todd said no. Or Bethesda can make a new Fallout timeline. You have a OG timeline (FO1, FO2, Tactics, and FNV) and a Bethesda timeline (all the games/shows they made). They have two outs to stop people from hating them. But Bethesda is not doing them.

Todd bought Fallout because Fallout was only just seen as a way to make merch out of. Yes, let's have vault boy on everything, let's have nuka-cola replicas, let's have bottle cap replicas .etc

But nothing about whether or not the games are even worth a toss to play. There's people who still to this day, favor FO 1, 2 and New Vegas. They were made with a level of charm and care that got YOU to where you are today. FO 3, 4 and 76 all feel like just empty open worlds with recycled material, it's running in place with no forward progression.

The OG creator of FO may be a humble guy, but the series still deserve better.

I think I figured out why Todd Howard seems to have tried to make Fallout die; he never wanted to buy Fallout, but was pressured by Zenimax into purchasing a second IPin case The Elder Scrolls ever fails.

Fallout has always been a backup to The main Elder Scrolls games in case he makes a mistake. If Fallout succeeds in a massive way, there is a chance he will have to start giving it more resources than his own pride and joy.

It's classic step-parent mentality. The suits made him into a step parent, so he managed a quick skin over oblivion and just copied bits and pieces of the first games stories like a high school student copying a book report from a book he never read. He didn't really care about the substance from the previous games, but there was a lot of old concept art they could mash up and the 50's aesthetic meant they could save a lot of money on licensing fees for music.

Then is sold big and ruined his chances for quietly making the story go away. But Skyrim was a huge success which should have made the idea of a second IP unnecessary. So, they decided to focus on their new game and let a company known for doing cheap sequels for other game companies IP.

Personally I wonder if Todd Howard was actually paying attention to who Obsidian had on staff, or if he just wanted a company who was willing to take the millstone from his neck so he could focus on the game he really wanted to make. The reason I think that Todd didn't know who Obsidian were is because of how he treated the next company who he let play with the Fallout IP.

Fallout 76 was the only other title made by a mostly outside developer. I say mostly, because they were a newly acquired studio who had no real experience. Which led to a failure in Fallout 76 from launch. Compare that to how ESO was put together. It was built by Zenimax Online a core studio designed just for an online MMO Elder Scrolls game. They weren't forced to use the single-player Gamebryo/Creation Engine. It was designed as it's own online game.

Fallout has been consistently designed to fail, which is why Microsoft should just remove it from Bethesda and get someone who understands the story and is willing to follow the real story Canon make new games. We're in this issue because Todd Howard has been forced to work on Fallout, which is amazing how even with him trying the screw it up, we still enjoy the Fallout world.