When you speak with someone in Las Vegas, the topic of conversation naturally shifts to Vegas-themed things. In the case of Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart, that meant Star Wars, of course. Oh, and I guess Fallout: New Vegas. During a DICE chat that lasted innumerable moons, months, seasons, and centuries, Urquhart and I briefly touched on his studio’s return to its old techno-magically irradiated Black Isle haunt. “Oh, we’d love to do Fallout: New Vegas 2,” he enthused. “It would be awesome.” But how would that work? And is Bethesda on board with the idea? Here’s what Urquhart had to say.

“If I think of going from Fallout 1 to Fallout 2, we tried to associate the two areas somewhat closely,” he explained to RPS. “It wasn’t just ‘Oh, we’re gonna do this 2,000 miles from here.’ So I think if we were to do Fallout: New Vegas 2 – or just a new Fallout – we would probably separate it from what the internal team at Bethesda’s doing. We’d keep it on the West Coast, because we’re West Coast people. They’re East Coast, so it makes sense.”

“And we need an interesting confined area. So I mean, it could be LA. Fallout LA. That could be interesting. It’d probably be The Boneyard, which is from Fallout 1. It could be very different. It could be almost a Walking Dead meets Fallout-like thing because of all the radiation.”

Which, of course, sounds pretty damn enticing. But there’s a lot more to making a bombed-out wasteland than, well, dropping some bombs. Red tape abounds, and Urquhart didn’t deny that it’s kind of a kick in the head. But Obsidian and Bethesda are definitely on good terms, so there’s plenty of hope.

“We talk to Bethesda all the time,” he said. “And I think the challenge here doesn’t just apply to Bethesda specifically, but to a lot of publishers in general. But basically, what does all the [current] console crap mean? The challenge in this period of time has been, you have this console transition, and it’s strange that they’re still not announced. But that always creates a disruption in the industry. And now you mix in [the emergence of] mobile and F2P stuff, and it’s left a lot of people reeling.”

“So that’s a lot of the conversation we’ve had with publishers. ‘OK, how do we get back to normal – whatever normal is going to be.’ That’s just the process right now.”

Meanwhile, I also managed to pull Bethesda’s Todd Howard aside and get his two cents, which basically amounted to a reiteration of Urquhart’s sentiment. Nothing’s set in stone, but New Vegas was great, and having another go at it certainly makes an awful lot of sense. So, right then, fingers crossed. Extra radiation-borne ones too, if you’ve got ’em.

Look for the full interview with Urquhart very, very soon. Sooner than last time I said this, even. Because that’s how time works.