With Amazon’s new Fallout TV show out now and an update to Fallout 4 arriving soon, longtime Fallout fans have already started wondering what the next official entry in the iconic post-apocalyptic video game series will look like.
Although it’s still years away, Bethesda Game Studios has been very upfront about the fact that Fallout 5 is in the pipeline, going as far as to say it will be the studio’s next major project after the release of The Elder Scrolls 6. With that in mind, we decided to round up all the early details we’ve heard about the next major installment in the Fallout game series so you can get caught up on everything we know so far.
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Fallout 5 Won’t Release For A Long Time
The first and most crucial thing to note is that Fallout 5 isn't going to be released for a very long time. As series director Todd Howard told us in an interview back in 2022, “Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that.”
Bethesda has said multiple times that The Elder Scrolls 6’s development would become the studio’s main focus after it wrapped up work on Starfield, which only launched in late 2023. Considering Xbox Head Phil Spencer claimed during last year's Microsoft vs FTC Trial that The Elder Scrolls 6 itself isn’t expected for “five plus years,” it’s safe to assume we’re not going to be hearing much about Fallout 5 or its release date for years to come.
Bethesda Has Drafted Up Early Plans For Fallout 5
Although its still early days for the sequel, Todd Howard has admitted that he's taken some time laying out the groundwork for Fallout 5 and where he wants to take the franchise next. Speaking to us on the IGN Unfiltered Podcast in 2021, Howard revealed: “We have a one-pager on Fallout 5, what we want to do.”
In essence, it seems Howard has already spent some time figuring out the broad concept for the next major entry in the Fallout series and the ideas Bethesda hopes to tackle going forward. That being said, he did make it clear those ideas are still in the very early stages. Continuing his discussion about Fallout 5 and Bethesda Game Studios' future projects in general, he claimed: “I'd like to find a way to accelerate what we do, but I can't really say today or commit to anything, [like] what's going to happen when.”
Ideas From The Fallout TV Show Were Held Back Because of Fallout 5
During recent press events for the upcoming Fallout TV show, Todd Howard and the show's crew talked more about the adaptation's story and crafting a live-action adventure set in such a lore-rich world. During these interviews, Jonathon Nolan claimed that making the show felt like working on "Fallout 5," telling Total Film that the show being an original, canon story set in the game's world makes it feel like a "non-interactive" new entry in the series rather than an adaptation.
Todd Howard later expanded on these comments while speaking with Den of Geek, revealing that he had several conversations with the team behind the show and asked them to avoid including certain story elements due to the eventual release of Fallout 5.
“There were some things where I said, ‘don’t do this because we are going to do that in Fallout 5,” Howard revealed, with showrunner Graham Wagner adding, “I think we made Fallout 6.” It appears the show and the next game will explore different aspects of Fallout's world, although things were close enough that Howard wanted them to circle around certain topics to ensure they both covered new ground. With The Fallout show centering on a vault dweller exploring the remnants of Los Angeles, this could be our first hint that Bethesda aims to head to the West Coast for its next iteration of the series.
See our guide on how to watch the Fallout TV series, which is now available.
What Platforms Will Fallout 5 Be On?
Regarding what platforms Fallout 5 will be on, it’s safe to assume that it’ll be available on Xbox consoles and PC considering Bethesda now falls under the Microsoft banner. However, whether that’s on current or next-gen consoles remains to be seen.
Seeing as the game's still a ways off and Phil Spencer didn't clarify whether Elder Scrolls 6 (which is launching prior to Fallout 5) was a current or next-gen release when talking about the game during Microsoft's FTC trial, it seems likely that Fallout 5 will release on future Xbox platforms. We’ll just have to wait and see where the game eventually falls.
What About PlayStation?
Currently, Bethesda Game Studios seems focused on releasing all of its upcoming games exclusively on Xbox platforms and PC. With Starfield releasing as a full Xbox console exclusive and leaked Microsoft documents suggesting that The Elder Scrolls 6 could be following suit, there’s a very good chance Fallout 5 will continue the trend.
That being said, Xbox has been more lenient with its library of exclusives in recent months, announcing that Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, and Pentiment are all making their way to other consoles. Whether this new approach to first-party releases eventually results in them launching flagship titles on rival consoles remains to be seen, but there’s always a possibility Fallout could be a multi-platform release. Right now, it's far too early to say. If it did release on PlayStation, it would likely be on the PS6.
Fallout 5 Will Use A More Advanced Engine Than Previous Fallout Games
In preparation for the release of Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, Bethesda's teams announced they'd fully overhauled the Creation engine, which was used to develop Skyrim, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. The most advanced version of the Creation Engine yet, Todd Howard called it “the largest [overhaul] we've probably ever had, maybe larger than Morrowind to Oblivion,” during a Develop: Brighton Digital conference in 2020.
Regardless of whether this remains the engine the team will use for Fallout 5 or they upgrade it further in time for the long-awaited sequel, Fallout will utilize a more advanced set of tools than its predecessors, benefitting from better graphics, pathing, lighting, NPC animations and more.
Callum Williams is a freelance media writer with years of experience as a game critic, news reporter, guides writer and features writer.
