Todd Howard says Bethesda is focused on finding ways to increase its output

Todd Howard has said Bethesda is working on solutions to shorten the length of time between its game releases.

Having released Starfield last year, Bethesda Game Studios has switched its attention to The Elder Scrolls 6, meaning a sequel to 2015’s Fallout 4 is likely many years away from releasing.

Howard discussed the long wait between new Bethesda games during an interview with Kinda Funny Games on Monday.

“You know, they do take a long time, and so I think one of the things we’re focused on here is obviously making sure they’re of the highest quality, but also finding ways to increase our output, because we don’t want to wait that long either, right. It’s never our plan, but we want to make sure we get it right.”

Off the back of the successful launch of Amazon’s Fallout TV series, the franchise appears to be more popular than it has ever been. Howard was asked if this has led to Bethesda discussing the possibility of partnering with external developers on, for example, more non-numbered series entries like Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas, or mobile spin-offs.

“I would say we’ve always had those conversations,” he replied. “We did a lot of things for the show. It might seem like there isn’t a big new game out, but we added content into 76 for the show. 76 has a really great map expansion that’s coming this summer with Skyline Valley.

“So, we look at what we’re doing with the franchise and say, do we still feel good about – I can’t reveal it now – our runway for Fallout as a franchise? When is season 2 happening? What are we doing on mobile? What are we doing on 76? What are we doing with this thing? What are we doing with this other thing? When are these landing?

“And again, if I could snap my fingers and have them all be out and ready, I would, but the main thing is how do we deliver these at a high quality level – that’s always the most important.”

Following the release of New Vegas, Bethesda turned down multiple proposals from Obsidian to develop more Fallout games as well as The Elder Scrolls spin-offs, according to studio co-founder and former chief creative officer Chris Avellone.

Later in the Kinda Funny interview, Howard was asked whether Microsoft owning both Bethesda and Obsidian has opened up more opportunities for collaborations like New Vegas.

“First of all, I’ll say they did an amazing job with New Vegas,” he responded. “I can’t speak to things that we’re doing with the franchise in the future, obviously, but New Vegas is a very, very important game to us and our fans,” Howard added. “We think they did an incredible job.”

Fallout 4’s long-awaited next-gen update was released for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 last week.