Next-gen consoles have allow developers to create massive open world games and we have the best 10 so far.
Waiting a decade for new instalments in franchises as massive as Fallout and Elder Scrolls feels like a waste.
Microsoft have Obsidian but I feel it's Bethesda who just don't want to play ball as they've always said they want to do it themselves.
Once MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have put the Outer Worlds 2 on the back burner, allow Bethesda to finish off its own Space RPG with Starfield (despite totally different tone why have two in your first party portfolio with two developers who's gameplay is a tad similar) and got Obsidian for one of their projects to make a spiritual successor to New Vegas.
When the Elder Scrolls VI is finished Bethesda can then onto the main numbered Fallout 5 themselves.
The Outer Worlds 2 started development in 2019 so putting it on the back burner wouldn't have been the end of the world, they'd have always come back to it once Fallout was done and it would have been nicely spaced out from Starfields release once they had most likely stopped supporting it and all the expansions were released.
If they did this back in 2020 when they bought Zenimax and the game had a good, steady 4 - 5 years development, you might have seen it release in 2025.
We are literally going to be waiting until 2030 at the very earliest for Fallout 5 and all they seem bothered about is pushing Fallout 76.
Its not just only Todd not playing ball.
Obsidian have made a name for themselves in delivering stellar RPGs, but most famous once have always been sequels/spin-offs to borrowed IPs like KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Stick of Truth etc.
Obsidian wants to invest more in their own original IPs like Outer Worlds or Pillars of Eternity with Avowed.
Similar to what Bluepoint & inXile wants to do or Kojima is doing (i.e not involving anymore in Konami's IPs).
So yea, even if New Vegas has the most votes from 3D Fallout fans, Obsidian just wants to do their own thing, like any aspiring dev studio and MS is likely currently respecting that.
But a future Fallout game from Obsidian will surely happen. Founder Feargus Urquhart has already stated an year ago that they're eager to make a new Fallout game with Bethesda, New Vegas 2 or otherwise. Urquhart was the director of the very first 1995's Fallout game after all.
And don't forget Brian Fargo and his studio inXile, as Brian Fargo was the director of Fallout's 1988 predecessor: Wasteland
"The Vancouver-based (Canada) indie games developer Blinkmoon Games are today very happy and proud to announce that their dark fantasy bullet heaven "Necromantic", is coming to PC via Steam Early Access in 2024." - Jonas Ek, TGG.
Athenian Rhapsody is a JRPG with a difference: alongside turn-based combat & exploration, you'll need to complete WarioWare-style microgames.
Let's see how opened they really are first. What you can do with-in that world is even bigger of a concern. A big opened world with nothing to do is not worth the effort.
Massive open worlds to explore really do get my balls tingling :0)
While massively scaled worlds are important, it's those intimate and dynamic details that make them come alive. To paint on the canvas of an open world is to utilize the contrast between populated areas and emptiness to get a good thematic feel for the world. And to this date I feel only Red Dead Redemption has achieved this. But with Hideo Kojima giving his hand at it, I'm very excited to see how the japenese game design philosophy of "the power in ones self" effects how they design an open world.
open world games, so I'll wait to see how they handle open world before I get excited.
I think open world can break the pace of the game. You are like saving the world, rescuing someone that has been kidnapped and then go around getting collectables, hunting dragons or getting drunk in the night club. It is just weird.