With the massive success of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, it’s no surprise that Bethesda (and likely Microsoft) may have fast-tracked development on similar projects, like a Fallout 3 remaster. Even Fallout: New Vegas is seemingly due for the remaster treatment.
While creative director Todd Howard said nothing about their existence, he has confessed to being “sort of anti-remake.” “I’ve softened on the whole remaster thing,” he told Kinda Funny Games. “I’m sort of anti-remake. I respect the other ones out there, but I really think the age of a game is part of what it is and its personality and what it represented when it came out.”
The studio seemingly looked through its extensive back catalogue when deciding on which one to remaster, and Oblivion just so happened to be “the right one.” “It was, ‘I definitely want it to be a remaster, but the absolute best version of that you can imagine,’” he adds. “So it was important to us that the original game was running, so imagine you had patched that game many, many, many times for many years, what would you have done?”
Howard also insisted that the overall visual style remained. “Let’s just make it look modern but still in the style it was. We’re not going to redesign the armor to be something new in The Elder Scrolls. It’s like that version of it looking the way you remember it, but up-resed.”
And of course, for those keeping track, he once again revealed that “multiple” Fallout projects are currently in development. How many remains unknown, sadly.
However, Howard’s stance on favoring remasters over remakes follows reports about Fallout 3’s alleged re-release. Rumors suggested that it would receive the Oblivion Remastered treatment, with a follow-up claiming that it’s “still in active development.” When it could be released is anyone’s guess, but Bethesda is apparently “keen to ensure it’s as well polished” as its shadow-dropped mega hit.
As for Fallout 5, Howard recently suggested that it would “have its time,” but dropped a more concrete tidbit last year. It will “exist” in a world where the events of Amazon’s Fallout “have happened or are happening.” Vague as that sounds, it suggests that the television series’ events could have some impact on the game’s story, if not occur in parallel. Time will tell, of course, and unfortunately, we’ll have to wait quite a long time indeed to know for sure.
