Bethesda spoilt open-world RPG fans in the 2000s and 2010s. Players who wanted to travel back to a myth-influenced past full of monsters and magic could play 2006's The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or 2011's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Meanwhile, if you preferred a post-apocalyptic future setting where nuclear warfare had wiped out most of humanity, Bethesda had your back too with 2008's Fallout 3 and 2015's Fallout 4 (Obsidian Entertainment also released Fallout: New Vegas in 2010).
Unfortunately, save for the much-maligned Fallout 76, Bethesda hasn't come out with a new The Elder Scrolls or Fallout game since 2015, and fans are growing impatient.
While there's still no word on when Fallout 5 will come out, Todd Howard has confirmed the game is in the pipeline.
The Bethesda Game Studios director and executive producer spoke with IGN at the Xbox-Bethesda showcase where he revealed the studio's plans for Fallout 5. However, you might not want to get your hopes high up. Fallout 5 is not Bethesda's priority at the moment.
As per Howard, Bethesda isn't set to work on Fallout 5 until after Elder Scrolls VI, which is still in pre-production. If we're lucky, Fallout V will be here in five years, but we wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda releases Fallout V closer to 2030.
Speaking of Elder Scrolls VI, the next mainline installment in Bethesda's award-winning franchise has been in development since at least 2018. Despite the early reveal, the Xbox-exclusive game was still in the design phase as of July 2021.
In the meantime, Bethesda has its priorities above the stars with Starfield. Howard explained last year that Starfield is an important project for Bethesda and that it needed to happen now or it would never get made at all.
We recently got a chance to take a look at Starfield, which was delayed to the first half of 2023, and it definitely looked the part of an ambitious if expensive endeavor.
