Although the fifth and final downloadable content pack for Fallout 3 has been out for a solid two weeks now, the game will continue to live on as a current discussion point for weeks to come. No, Bethesda isn’t secretly preparing more add-ons — the five pieces of DLC on Xbox 360 and PC still need to make it to the PlayStation 3 version.
But that raises the question, why is the studio ending the post-launch Fallout 3 support when many of us are more than ready to keep paying for new content. Speaking with Kotaku, executive producer at Bethesda Todd Howard said three was the plan from the get-go, and then they were going to "see where that goes."
"I kind of had in my mind that the upper limit was five," explains Howard. "Part of that was what I think people are willing to continue to pay for a game. And a lot of that is our own internal bandwidth."
It’s hard not to be sad about Fallout 3’s vast story coming to a close when you’ve invested upwards of sixty hours into it. How do the rest of you feel? Were you growing tired of the add-ons or did you appreciate having a reason to to jump right back in every few weeks?
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Tags: bethesda, culture, elder, elder-scrolls, fallout, feature, gaming, love, news, xbox 360
Last week at QuakeCon 09, Bethesda’s Todd Howard was quoted as saying the company had “no current plans” for a fifth Elder Scrolls game. According to Bethesda, that’s not what Howard said at all.
The developer’s Pete Hines posted a statement on the Bethesda Blog today, clarifying Howard’s comments regarding the future of the Elder Scrolls series.
That was not a direct quote from him. That was someone’s interpretation of what he said. I know, I was there. At his QuakeCon talk he was asked when TESV is coming out and Todd replied, “Don’t look for a new Elder Scrolls game in the near future.” He also went on to say how much the franchise means to us and that it definitely will continue. He just wasn’t going to provide any timeframe on “when.” This should not be news to anyone that has been paying attention. Both Todd and I have said repeatedly that, of course, we’re going to do another Elder Scrolls game. The last one was enormously popular. So was the one before that. You get the idea. So do we.
In other words, the fate of the series isn’t in question, and it shouldn’t be.
Hines goes on in his post to clarify statements Howard made about an Elder Scrolls MMO, pointing out that neither Todd nor anyone on Todd’s team worked on MMOs, and when the studio that does work on them – ZeniMax Online – is ready to show what they are creating, they’ll show it.
I am trying to imagine an angry Pete Hines here, and it terrifies me. Just believe the man and move on before anyone gets hurt.
Clarifying About Next Elder Scrolls game, MMO, etc. [Bethesda Blog]
There are no current plans to make Elder Scrolls V, said Bethesda Softworks’ Todd Howard.
Speaking at id Software’s QuakeCon 2009 last week, the game director said, “We are working on our next big game, but we are not talking about it.”
The follow-up to 2006’s blockbuster role-playing game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion isn’t coming anytime soon (even though we were supposed to get it in 2010), but perhaps the “big game” he’s talking about is a massively multiplayer online experience of the Elder Scrolls franchise instead. Speaking about the rumored Elder Scrolls MMO, he added, jokingly, “There’s always a chance.”
But it may just be more than that. The super sleuth at Tumblr blog superannuation (the same one who discovered Blizzard’s trademarking of “cataclysm”), discovered several web domains with the nameserver of Bethesda parent company Zenimax as their host. Web domains such as elderscrollsmmo.com and elderscrollsonline.com, for instance.
This doesn’t confirm the game’s existence, but time will tell whether these domains will ever come to use.
Do you prefer Elder Scrolls as a single-player experience, or a massively multiplayer one?
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Image courtesy Elderscrolls.com
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On this week’s instalment of No Plans Watch: Bethesda’s Todd Howard, speaking at QuakeCon 09 on the future of the Elder Scrolls series now that his company is officially done with Fallout 3.
Answering fan questions on the subject, Howard said that there are “no current plans” for a fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series.
A little disappointing, true, but remember, “no current plans” only means no current plans. Plans change. And hey, maybe he’s just being coy, and they’re working on Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion II!
QuakeCon 2009: Todd Howard keynote highlights [Big Download]
Bethesda Softworks is celebrating the fifteen-year anniversary of the Elder Scrolls franchise in a delicious way: starting today the second title in the Elder Scrolls series (subtitled “Daggerfall”) is available as a free download through the studios’ Web site. Yep. This isn’t an illegal download from a garbage abandonware site. This is the real thing in all its dated and buggy glory.
As Bethesda notes on their development blog, this sort of fan service isn’t exactly new. Five years ago, the studio released Elder Scrolls: Arena in much this same fashion. (Do we get Morrowind in 2014?) Also noted is that in order to run Daggerfall, you’ll need to use a program like DOSBox. It’s a tricky bit of software, but a Bethesda QA is making our lives a lot easier: He’s created a walkthrough for the process.
So, Daggerfall: are you guys going to give this a spin?
[Thanks, King3vbo and wheeliedude]
Bethesda may be focused on the Fallout franchise for the foreseeable future, but the developer hasn’t forgotten fans of its Elder Scrolls series, or their seeming affinity with reading through reams of text. To that end, Bethesda has teamed with Del Rey Books to create two novels based on the Elder Scrolls world.
The two novels will be penned by “New York Times bestselling author Greg Keyes.” Keyes is best known for his work on Star Wars novels and the Age of Unreason series.
The first novel, dubbed The Infernal City, is scheduled for release in Fall of this year. It tells an original story set after the events of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that features a floating city, shadows that raise the dead and a duo of unlikely heroes tasked with saving the kingdom of Tamriel.
Typical fantasy stuff, really.
Image courtesy Bethesda
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