Following Todd Howard’s appearance at Gamelab, where he received an “Industry Legend” award, the Bethesda director made a series of media appearances and interviews. During one such interview, he was asked about whether Bethesda might still make “Fallout 5“. According to Howard, it’s definitely a possibility. Interestingly, if it does happen, it would be a Fallout single-player game.

Fallout 76 and Fallout 5

Speaking with GameStar, Todd Howard was asked whether multiplayer would become a staple feature of Bethesda titles after Fallout 76. As both he and Pete Hines have clarified several times, it will not be. Hines confirmed that both Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI are single-player-only titles. Moreover, Howard went on to explain that Fallout 76 doesn’t preclude other Fallout single-player games launching in the future, including “Fallout 5”.

Speaking of the studio’s traditional single-player franchises, including Fallout, Howard stated that; “For those games, we want to keep them as single player. That is what our focus is going to be. If they have some social aspect we haven’t designed yet, you’ll see. But we treat each of them each as their own thing.” As a result, Fallout 5 could well be made at some point in the future as a return to the traditional, sequential core franchise.

Fans had expected Fallout 5 for some time. Thus, the “Fallout 76” title provoked rampant speculation among fans that something was different about the game. As it turned out, that difference was multiplayer. Bethesda has never made one of their core RPG titles featuring multiplayer. As such, Bethesda probably views Fallout 76 as something of an experiment. If Fallout 76 performs poorly; it would not be surprising at all to see Bethesda return to business-as-usual with the franchise. On the other hand, if it performs well, then they may consider other multiplayer projects. However, displacing Fallout 76 from the core series and the setting’s own timeline could well be a wise decision to help convince players to accept a huge change to the beloved formula.