Sorry, Fallout fans, but Obsidian isn’t really interested in making New Vegas 2: After years of working on other people’s games, the studio is finding ‘joy’ in doing its own thing
2025 was a very big year for Obsidian, which released not just one but two major RPGs, Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, plus the backyard survival adventure Grounded 2 in early access. An awful lot of fans are eager for something else, though, and it’s no secret what that is: Alpha Protocol 2.
And, I suppose, some of you might also have your fingers crossed for Fallout: New Vegas 2.
The hangup is that after years of making games based on other people’s properties—KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Dungeon Siege 3, South Park: The Stick of Truth—Obsidian is apparently having a pretty good time doing its own thing.
“I know everyone on the internet, on every game we ever announce, will constantly reference back to, when’s the next New Vegas? When’s the next whatever?” Morgan said.
“But this year, in addition to it being a celebration of shipping three games, all three of the games are IP that we’ve created, that are Obsidian IP. Our history prior to Microsoft surrounded working on others’ IP. And this is the joy that we get of, ‘How do we start to define our own do we build our own IP?’ And we’ve got to the part where we have sequels to all of them. All of them are IP we’ve created.”
There’s no doubt that The Outer Worlds is in many ways more that a little similar to Bethesda’s take on Fallout, which includes New Vegas, and that’s one of the reasons it never did much for me: It felt imitative, but also less, somehow, than the games it imitates.
At the same time, nothing succeeds like success, and Obsidian’s certainly found that, and I can’t find it in myself to complain too much about its cautious approach to RPG development when that success enables genuinely innovative games like Pentiment, which is objectively the best thing it’s done since at least Pillars 2.
Besides, there’s always hope: Obsidian might be enjoying its deserved moment in the sun, but CEO Feargus Urquhart said just a few years ago that he wants one more crack at Fallout before he rides off into the sunset—and that he’d be “surprised” if a new Fallout isn’t on the list of possible projects once Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 are out.
