For those who don't know, various leaks imply that Microsoft has given development of a New Fallout game to Obsidian Entertainment after the massive layoffs. I would like this to be a thread for Speculation on this fallout game. My current Thoughts:
Where is the location? I think the Midwest, Mid-atlantic between DC and Boston (I.e New York, Eastern and Central PA, etc), Texas or South need some love, or even somewhere outside the USA (Fallout London did it well and that was a fangame!)
When would it take place? Same time as Fallout 4 or the TV series, or later? Perhaps earlier?


I would like this to be open to all Speculation on the Potential new Fallout.

After that other company stripped everything good out of Fallout for #4, hearing that Obsidian potentially got the rights back to make the next Fallout game gave me hope. For whatever it's worth, here's what I would like to see:

1) bring skills back.

2) perks that matter more than just combat.

3) actual builds. E.g. a stealth focused character won't be built to properly pick up a heavy weapon.

4) Don't throw power armor at us in the first 10 minutes. It should be rare and powerful endgame stuff if it's in there at all.

5) please don't do the thing from Avowed and Outer Worlds where the open world isn't really open but rather corridors disguised as open terrain. Go back to how New Vegas was in terms of the world.

6) allow real stealth. Not the "you can only stealth where we allow you to stealth with this special grass" nonsense from OW and Avowed.

7) did i mention bringing back skills already? Yeah. that.

8) please try to recapture the specific sense of humor that made Fallout FALLOUT. E.g. Fo1 and Fo2. I still remember a quote from the end credits of (I think it was F02) - "Bring in Marketing. I wish to taste of their unsavoriness as well." Tragic cards, etc. That other company sucked the life out of the game. (along with destroying almost all of the RPG aspects of it)

9) Please do not do the "Omg my baby is missing I have to go find my kidnapped baby - after I do these 4200 side quests" thing. There's no need for the main story arc to be super mega urgent time crunch.

10) please do NOT do the b-soft "level scaling" thing. When everything is always the same level as the player it absolutely destroys any feeling that you've advanced or made any progress. It eliminates the RPG side of the game and just turns it into an action shooter. Maybe i'm old, but I like it when you try to go into an area, get your butt handed to you and realize you're not high enough level for that place yet... then go back later and get revenge once you've caught up. That is fun. Everything always being your level is samey, generic, and lame.

Edited July 14Jul 14 by Matthew Cox
added more

Since the game will in all likelyhood mirror Fallout 4 in many aspects (I hope it won’t, but it is what it is), I kinda hope they’ll still manage to renew the concept a bit towards a more systemic side of an RPG than the current staple of how these games are made. Instead if… you know, just making a Fallou 4 2.

For instance, they could take a page from Wizardry 8 and Might & Magic 6 for how party and combat work (with current technological sensibilities in mind of course, those examples are probably older than some people posting here). VATS is there so the trappings are already in.

In that vein, for and open world game, a learn-by-doing system for skillprogression is more rewarding than adding a couple of points every now and then, so there too a good way would be a 50/50, where the player and companions *slowly* get better through the actions they perform, and during levelups, you get the slightly faster progression through allocating skillpoints and perks.

I’d also like to see more traditional skillchecks (rolls) instead if simply gatekeeping. Even if there were minigames, those games can withold action nodes where a roll decides success or fail, and even what kind of success or fail.

This holds also in dialog. Persuasion, intimidation, bartering, decieving, seducing, and other checks that try to influence the NPC’s sensibilities should nearly always be weghted rolls against the NPC’s disposition. Bordeline cases where - for example - the NPC already cowers in fear before you, no roll for Intimidation is needed.

Other than that, more interactive and reactive world (through skill-/statchecks) would enliven the experience. I’m not talking about crafting or basebuilding here, but rather discovering things through being able to try things out outside the box. E.g. Maybe your small frame trait allows you to access places you otherwise couldn’t, but it also puts other places outside your access, since you’re just too small to reach them.

Stuff like that.

6 hours ago, Undecaf said:

In that vein, for and open world game, a learn-by-doing system for skillprogression is more rewarding than adding a couple of points every now and then

In theory, yes but in practice no. Bethesda's "learn by doing" skill raising system just encourages degenerate behaviour. (e.g. getting an auto key presser and going afk while you jump against a rock to raise athletics) or other scummy thing. People exploit them rather than play the game. And if someone doesn't want to do the degen thing, they're still going to feel like they're suboptimal for not doing it. For that reason I think spending skill points each level is the better choice.

(and I played Wizardy 8. Granted, I was a kid at the time but I still played it. Remains in my memory because of some of the weird things you could do there, like make a fairy ninja character.)

Edited July 15Jul 15 by Matthew Cox

5 hours ago, Matthew Cox said:

In theory, yes but in practice no. Bethesda's "learn by doing" skill raising system just encourages degenerate behaviour. (e.g. getting an auto key presser and going afk while you jump against a rock to raise athletics) or other scummy thing. People exploit them rather than play the game. And if someone doesn't want to do the degen thing, they're still going to feel like they're suboptimal for not doing it. For that reason I think spending skill points each level is the better choice.

(and I played Wizardy 8. Granted, I was a kid at the time but I still played it. Remains in my memory because of some of the weird things you could do there, like make a fairy ninja character.)

Yes, there us that, but…

From off the top of my hat, Sneak is the only skill you could probably do that with Fallout (no skills for athletics or acrobatics, no nonhostile spellspam, no armorskills, no alchemy…), and even that can be offset with how worthwhile of the players time it is made (e.g. the frequency of increments, how static The NPC’s are in terms of their situational awareness).

The degeneracy of it is kinda a TES staple and comes from its very systems design. That’s part of the experience in that series, but Fallouts systems don’t really lean towards that kind of gameplay (nor should they).

Solo, or with optional party members, great.

Mandatory pre-made party members, I begrudgingly accept.

Manually creating a whole party, just about a dealbreaker.

Well, that's some news.

On 7/14/2026 at 2:23 PM, Matthew Cox said:

After that other company stripped everything good out of Fallout for #4, hearing that Obsidian potentially got the rights back to make the next Fallout game gave me hope. For whatever it's worth, here's what I would like to see:

1) bring skills back.

2) perks that matter more than just combat.

3) actual builds. E.g. a stealth focused character won't be built to properly pick up a heavy weapon.

4) Don't throw power armor at us in the first 10 minutes. It should be rare and powerful endgame stuff if it's in there at all.

5) please don't do the thing from Avowed and Outer Worlds where the open world isn't really open but rather corridors disguised as open terrain. Go back to how New Vegas was in terms of the world.

6) allow real stealth. Not the "you can only stealth where we allow you to stealth with this special grass" nonsense from OW and Avowed.

7) did i mention bringing back skills already? Yeah. that.

8) please try to recapture the specific sense of humor that made Fallout FALLOUT. E.g. Fo1 and Fo2. I still remember a quote from the end credits of (I think it was F02) - "Bring in Marketing. I wish to taste of their unsavoriness as well." Tragic cards, etc. That other company sucked the life out of the game. (along with destroying almost all of the RPG aspects of it)

9) Please do not do the "Omg my baby is missing I have to go find my kidnapped baby - after I do these 4200 side quests" thing. There's no need for the main story arc to be super mega urgent time crunch.

10) please do NOT do the b-soft "level scaling" thing. When everything is always the same level as the player it absolutely destroys any feeling that you've advanced or made any progress. It eliminates the RPG side of the game and just turns it into an action shooter. Maybe i'm old, but I like it when you try to go into an area, get your butt handed to you and realize you're not high enough level for that place yet... then go back later and get revenge once you've caught up. That is fun. Everything always being your level is samey, generic, and lame.

On 7/14/2026 at 2:23 PM, Matthew Cox said:

After that other company stripped everything good out of Fallout for #4, hearing that Obsidian potentially got the rights back to make the next Fallout game gave me hope. For whatever it's worth, here's what I would like to see:

1) bring skills back.

2) perks that matter more than just combat.

3) actual builds. E.g. a stealth focused character won't be built to properly pick up a heavy weapon.

4) Don't throw power armor at us in the first 10 minutes. It should be rare and powerful endgame stuff if it's in there at all.

5) please don't do the thing from Avowed and Outer Worlds where the open world isn't really open but rather corridors disguised as open terrain. Go back to how New Vegas was in terms of the world.

6) allow real stealth. Not the "you can only stealth where we allow you to stealth with this special grass" nonsense from OW and Avowed.

7) did i mention bringing back skills already? Yeah. that.

8) please try to recapture the specific sense of humor that made Fallout FALLOUT. E.g. Fo1 and Fo2. I still remember a quote from the end credits of (I think it was F02) - "Bring in Marketing. I wish to taste of their unsavoriness as well." Tragic cards, etc. That other company sucked the life out of the game. (along with destroying almost all of the RPG aspects of it)

9) Please do not do the "Omg my baby is missing I have to go find my kidnapped baby - after I do these 4200 side quests" thing. There's no need for the main story arc to be super mega urgent time crunch.

10) please do NOT do the b-soft "level scaling" thing. When everything is always the same level as the player it absolutely destroys any feeling that you've advanced or made any progress. It eliminates the RPG side of the game and just turns it into an action shooter. Maybe i'm old, but I like it when you try to go into an area, get your butt handed to you and realize you're not high enough level for that place yet... then go back later and get revenge once you've caught up. That is fun. Everything always being your level is samey, generic, and lame.

I quite agree. They should take all their strengths from New Vegas and the first two games, and blend them together.

I particularly can't stand and utterly hate the bright blue skies in later entries like 4, becuase it makes it look a LOT less like a proper post-apocalypse, and more like some stupid stroll through Disneyland!

I hope with all my heart Obsidian gets it right, not only by taking notes from the New Vegas and the first two games, but by also paying close attention to their consumers comment sections, such as this one.

Getting back to the sky in a Fallout game, it should look nice and dead, and foreboding. Perhaps a nice and sickly radioactive green, or cloudy and gray.

What do you think?

The new Fallout game should have a nice and foreboding sky.

Not a stupid bright blue one like in 4. That just made it feel like the post-apocalypse was over.

Fallout is just as much a horror series as it is an rpg series. The original developers of the first two games dreamt up horribly mutated creatures as a result of humankinds folly and a nuclear holocaust, and strange thinking factions who don't at all function like normal society as one would imagine.

As such, I believe the sky should be either be a sickly radioactive green, or cloudy and gray. There should be a deadness to the sky.

location ?

• California ( NCR territory )

  or

• Arizona ( Legion territory )

the problem with skills growing because you take part in that skill activity :

• how are you going to level up your speech skill ? fail 20+ quests if you want to solve them in a diplomatic way ? fail half the game speech checks to get one at the end of the game right ?

• what about bartering ? if you find 200 bullets do you want to sell them 1 by 1 because that is how you level upi the skill faster ?

  skills system has a big chance to fail at the implementation stage

17 hours ago, viasqi said:

the problem with skills growing because you take part in that skill activity :

• how are you going to level up your speech skill ? fail 20+ quests if you want to solve them in a diplomatic way ? fail half the game speech checks to get one at the end of the game right ?

• what about bartering ? if you find 200 bullets do you want to sell them 1 by 1 because that is how you level upi the skill faster ?

  skills system has a big chance to fail at the implementation stage

The role of speech skill should be somewhat redefined anyway. Every time you appeal to someones sensibilities (persuade, decieve, intimidate, seduce, barter, etc), it should be a non-deterministic check (a roll of the dice, if you will) against the NPCs disposition or a correlating stat, that the player can try… well, let’s say 1-3 times. Every success means the skill goes up a bit, but also every failure means it goes up, just a bit less. Those checks (Speech checks specifically; not Sneak or Energyweapons checks; those represent knowledge) shouldn’t be the only keys to quest completion anyway, but rather they should be opening doors towards otherwise unreachable opportunities.

I’d make it so that Speech as a skill is just an underlying logic behind the intent and pair the skill with different attributes depending on what is tried (something like:

-Speech+Strength: Intimidation/Coercion;

-Speech+Intelligence: Persuasion/Deception;

-Speech+Charisma: Seduction/Barter;

…and so forth).

If you can actually try those checks more than once, it makes it an active attempt (there might even be a simplistic minigame of sorts for trying with different methods if the first one fails, but I’m nit going into that) that grows your skill, and through that makes the whole dialog situation much more interesting and engaging than the simple gated checks.

I’d go even as far as there being only little dialog, that isn’t behind or affected by a check of some form.

Anyway, nondeterministic ”multichance”skillchecks make the dialog more dynamic and open up a lot of possibilities. You could - for instance -try your luck aggressively pushing for something, but then have to back down to not stir a fight and try to regain the previously good relations.

As for barter… The same princible applies. Morrowind already had good system for bartering. You stack the things you want to buy on the table and then you ”suggest” a price other than the nominal (or accept the noninal price; that grows your skill too, but less than a haggled price). If you want to game the system and haggle 200+ times in a row, go for it. You’re able, but that doesn’t mean you should (especially if you find it unfun).