Imagine a completely original The Elder Scrolls from Obsidian, the creators of Pillars of Eternity and the sequel to Star Wars: KOTOR. That would be pure fantasy in every sense. What if I told you that there was a plan for that to happen? Or, at least, an intention for this to happen as a great series of parallel installments to the Bethesda saga.
Currently, both Obsidian and the great Maryland company are part of the large Xbox Game Studios family, but before they both joined Microsoft they gave us a truly exceptional game: Fallout New Vegas. For critics and players, one of the best exponents of the saga itself. And that makes the discarded ideas that the screenwriter and developer Chris Avellone put on the table hurt us a little more.
As confirmed by Avellone, more than ten years ago Obsidian made multiple proposals to Bethesda to shape new games of The Elder Scrolls y Fallout parallels to the main saga. I already told you that all of them were rejected. But the most curious thing is that, in addition, there was a great plan to expand both franchises.
One of the Elder Scrolls proposals (which I submitted myself) had the same function as Fallout New Vegas between Fallout 3 and Falout 4, providing more adventures in the setting in the years leading up to the next Bethesda release.
In other words, the great idea was to offer new incursions into the universes of its most successful franchises, as spin-offs, which would give Bethesda room to maneuver between the developments of the main installments. And not only that, since Avellone’s plan was similar to the dynamics Activision had begun to give to Call of Duty more th an ten years ago.
I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try to push a system similar to what Treyarch/Activision had with Call of Duty at the time (if possible, with more margin).
Bethesda could do a major release, then we’d release an Elder Scrolls title (in the same world or a divergent timeline/era) before Bethesda’s next big game.
That probably would have been less relevant now than the current Elder Scrolls Online, but at the time it seemed like something that could benefit both studios.
Here it is worth getting into context: Avellone and Obsidian’s plan made a lot of sense at a time when the great video game sagas sought to reduce the time margins between one major installment and the next in different ways. From The Legend of Zelda to Halo through God of War.
What happened? Basically, the pros and cons of making that move were weighed and each idea was ultimately discarded. And how Avellone commented.the state in which it was released Fallout New Vegaswith many problems, had a lot to do with making that decision.
Since then, Bethesda and the sagas Fallout y The Elder Scrolls have evolved constantly. Later, both made the leap to the MMORPG format that will end up receiving content periodically, but they also ended up offering fans experiences for mobile phones. Colossal projects in the face of two long-term developments: The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5.
And what’s more curious: right now both Bethesda and Obsidian are under the umbrella of Xbox Game Studios. A titan in which several of the greatest references of Western RPG converge. And it’s no secret that Avowed, Obsidian’s first blockbuster after the Microsoft acquisition, has a huge influence on The Elder Scrolls.
Is there room for that idea to materialize now that both studios share a house? At Obsidian they have it very clear: they burn with the desire to make a new Fallout and repeat the success of New Vegas.
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