Fallout 5 – Should it Have Released Before Starfield?

It’s never easy as a high-profile game developer to make something for years, launch it with all the hype in the world and then watch your other games overtake it in player counts. Bethesda’s been there recently with Starfield – its 24-hour player peak on Steam averaged a measly 5709 players. Even this past weekend, it could only hit 8209 players.

Meanwhile, following the explosive success of Amazon’s Fallout TV show, Fallout 4 is soaring high, peaking at 120,870 concurrent players on Steam in the past 24 hours and 164,190 on the weekend. Even Fallout 76 is doing better, with 54,176 concurrent players recently and peaking at 73,368 just two days ago, a new record for the title on Steam. However, those who have kept track of the charts for the last several months will notice that older Bethesda titles beating Starfield isn’t necessarily a new trend.

Furthermore, as older players return to Fallout 4, there is a new appreciation for the title and what it offers. How much of that is from being burnt by Starfield is unknown, but there’s an enjoyment in wandering the Commonwealth and encountering different events, meeting unique characters and exploring all kinds of structures to learn about HalluciGen, the Dunwich Borers, or just that one Jigsaw wannabe rigging a house full of traps and explosives.

Areas like the Glowing Sea, Diamond City and Cambridge Square feel unique. The companions, from Nick Valentine and Cait to Piper and Paladin Danse, have interesting stories and quests. Moreover, the gunplay – while not quite the best in the business – has held up incredibly well. It also doesn’t hurt that the weapon variety feels unique – portable nuke launchers, triple-barrel shotguns, harpoon guns, take your pick.

Perhaps because of the tidal wave of support for the franchise right now and the imminent next-gen update for Fallout 4, some have posited the question: What if instead of Starfield, Bethesda developed and released Fallout 5 instead? It’s easy to dismiss at first because a game developer should be free to make any title they choose. If Sony Santa Monica wants to keep developing God of War games, let ’em. If Bethesda wants to experiment with new systems and make a role-playing game about space, then why not?

However, upon further rumination, I also wondered: Why not?

It isn’t to dismiss Starfield as a bad game, mind you. While I didn’t vibe with it (Baldur’s Gate 3 and its demands on my time also didn’t help), the space-faring RPG topped 13 million players as of December 21st – regardless of being on Game Pass, it’s still an impressive achievement. Averaging 40 hours of playtime per person is also worthy of praise. Furthermore, Bethesda deserves some credit for taking its fundamental systems and mechanics and trying to apply them on such a massive scale while developing brand-new mechanics like ship-building, zero-gravity combat, space battles and more.

However, you start to wonder if those resources couldn’t have gone towards fast-tracking the next Fallout. It’s not just because hindsight is 20/20 with the show’s success. With Fallout 4, Bethesda built a solid base. Yes, it had technical issues, a settlement system which many questioned the worth of, a relatively short story and a terrible dialogue system. The faction quests could have been better, yada yada, you’ve heard it all before.

The fact that it took many of those learnings and made Far Harbor is a testament that it can deliver what fans want. So why not take the solid gunplay and crafting systems, travel to a new location, and create a sequel that emphasises story-telling and choices, resulting in several branching outcomes while delving further into the lore?

If Obsidian could do it two years after Fallout 3’s release, that too with an 18-month development cycle, surely Bethesda could do it seven years after Fallout 4’s last DLC, Nuka World, launched. For good measure, it could look towards the thousands of mods created thus far and look at the best ideas to implement in the next game.

I know what you’re thinking, “But we got Fallout 76!” Granted, there was a time when many fans thought it was unnecessary. However, even after a spread of tech issues and lacking several Fallout-esque systems, it still attracted a following. To its credit, the development team didn’t just bolt on systems from the single-player titles but found ways to make them work within the online set-up, all while building upon Fallout 76’s infrastructure and gameplay style.

However, Fallout 76 wasn’t developed solely by Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda Game Studios Austin (formerly BattleCry Studios) co-developed the title and seemingly took over the project after its release. That’s not counting all the other studios that contributed, like Arkane, ZeniMax Online Studios, Iron Galaxy and Double Eleven. Still, regardless of its messy development, it’s proven the merit of having an online Fallout that exists as a separate entity, with over 17 million players as of December 2023.

While a new single-player-focused Fallout could do so much more, expanding on the role-playing options, there’s another reason why Bethesda could have gone with Fallout 5 instead of Starfield – the universe. Since its inception, Fallout has offered one of the richest video game settings in history. Lore nerds can argue about continuity and how the new games don’t match Black Isle’s classics. Yet everyone can agree that the setting, with all its hang-ups and self-awareness of humanity’s grim future, is worth getting lost in.

A world that’s suffered the post-nuclear apocalypse, where survival is paramount but various means of debauchery are encouraged; the conspiracies surrounding Vault-Tec and the Vaults it created for its nefarious purposes; the factions that parallel real-world movements and philosophies but in a world seemingly bereft of values; the dark humor of it all. There’s so much to build on narratively, but you could shine a light on a selection of events in the post-war timeline and still deliver an incredible storyline.

By comparison, Starfield had a more challenging exercise. Not only does it have to envision a future where humanity embraced space travel and colonisation, but it must also set up different cultures, cities and events to fill out its fictional history. Presenting a compelling main narrative alongside this is challenging – even Bethesda’s Fallout titles have had issues with the same. However, they could fall back on the setting, from post-war shenanigans to pre-war shadows. Maybe it’s a benefit of having so many titles laying the groundwork, while Starfield is the first in its series. Time will tell if the latter can effectively expand to deliver an equally compelling narrative.

If you ask most developers from Bethesda, they would tell you they’re proud of Starfield. And they should be since a game like this with so many interconnected mechanics that are not breaking every other second is noteworthy. However, with so many new and returning players for Fallout, having a contemporary title to point to and serve as a gateway to the franchise would have been great. They could have even revisited the concept of Starfield down the line.

Could Bethesda have delivered on it and redeemed whatever mixed reactions Fallout 4 received when it was released? Would it have delivered a superior product to Starfield? There’s no way to say for sure, but it would surely beat waiting however many years for Fallout 5 to release. Until then, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 will have to do.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.