Fallout 5: Everything Todd Howard Has Said About Bethesda’s New Game

As if there was ever any doubt, Bethesda director Todd Howard has once again confirmed Fallout 5 is coming… eventually.

Following widespread layoffs at Xbox earlier this month, Bethesda Game Studios has published a studio roadmap featuring its plans for the near and far-off future. Part of its letter included confirmation that a fifth mainline entry in its massively popular post-apocalyptic RPG series has officially entered pre-production, but what that means for Vault Dwellers everywhere remains to be seen.

What is Fallout 5 about? Where does it take place? How will it connect to other games in the franchise? How much will it cost? Will it come to PlayStation? And when is its release date? These questions (and many more) have filled fans’ minds since Fallout 4 launched in 2015. Do we really know the answer to any of them? No, but Howard has still spent the last decade promising that Bethesda has big plans in store for what’s next.

Fallout 5 Is Officially Announced and Being Worked On

Howard first spoke about Fallout 5 back in 2021, meaning one of the first official mentions of the game arrived six years after Fallout 4 and three years after multiplayer spinoff Fallout 76. At the time, he told IGN that there was a very surface-level plan for the series’ future.

“I don’t see… Look, Fallout’s really part of our DNA here,” he said at the time. “We’ve worked with other people from time to time – I can’t say what’s gonna happen. You know, we have a one-pager on Fallout 5, what we want to do.”

He added, “Again, if I could wave my hand and have [Fallout 5] out – you know, I’d like to find a way to accelerate what we do, but I can’t really say today or commit to anything, [like] what’s going to happen when.”

Todd Howard Says Fallout 5 Will Arrive After The Elder Scrolls 6

Players had long believed a fifth Fallout game would eventually arrive, but a statement from Howard in June 2022 made it clear the wait would be longer than what was expected by some of Bethesda’s most skeptical fans. He told IGN the plan was to see Fallout 5 arrive after The Elder Scrolls 6, which, at the time of this story’s publication in July 2026, still seems to be years from launch.

“Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so our slate’s pretty full going forward for a while,” he said at the time, still one year out from the launch of Starfield. “We have some other projects that we look at from time to time as well.”

The Fallout Show Crew Knows ‘All About’ Fallout 5

One thing keeping Fallout fans happy in-between installments is the Fallout show on Prime Video. Ahead of the premiere of Season 1 in 2024, executive producer Jonathan Nolan went as far as to tell Den of Geek that the crew “know all about Fallout 5” and that they’re “not telling anyone.”

It’s hard to say just how much of Fallout 5 had come together by this point, but Howard said he made sure the crew steered clear of any unwanted crossovers.

“Well, there were some things where I said, ‘Don’t do this because we are going to do that in Fallout 5,'” Howard said. “But I think the intent when you see that, it’s how we approached it. I think it’s one of the things that’s unique about this sort of genre translation of something – whether it’s a game or a comic or some other book – is that it wasn’t a translation of an existing story; it was, ‘What would the next thing be?’ It just happens to be a TV show, and that was the approach to it.”

Don’t Expect Fallout 5 to Leave the U.S.

Fallout 3 brought Vault Dwellers to the Capital Wasteland of Washington, D.C., Fallout 4 traveled to Boston’s Commonwealth, and Fallout 5 will (probably) take players somewhere else in the United States. That’s according to Howard, who told Kinda Funny in April 2024 that Bethesda plans to “predominantly” keep the series from leaving too far outside of its comfort zone.

“My view is part of the Fallout schtick is on the Americana naivete and part of that,” Howard said. “And so, for us right now, it’s OK to acknowledge some of those other areas. But our plan is to predominantly keep it in the U.S.”

He continued: “I also like in any sort of world, I don’t feel the need to answer. It’s OK to leave mystery or questions: what is happening here? What is happening here? I think those are good things. In Elder Scrolls everybody wants to go to these other, mysterious lands. The worst thing you could do to mysterious lands is remove the mysteriousness. Keep mysterious lands mysterious!”

Todd Howard Doesn’t Want to Rush Fallout 5

So, the Fallout show was a success – but now what? In June 2024, Howard told content creator MrMattyPlays that Bethesda isn’t interested in “rushing” its games just because millions of fans showed up to watch the first season of the TV series.

“For other Fallout games in the future, you know, obviously I can’t talk about those right now, but I would say, sort of rushing through them, or we kind of need to get stuff out that is different than the work we’re doing in 76… we don’t feel like we need to rush any of that,” he said. “The Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling.”

He continued, saying that he totally gets “the desire for a new kind of mainline single-player game” in the franchise. The reality, according to him, however, is that “those things take time.”

“I don’t think it’s bad for people to miss things,” Howard added. “We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we’re doing in a franchise, whether it’s Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or now Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loved these franchises as much as we do.”

Todd Howard to Desperate Fallout Fans: ‘Just Know We Are Working on Even More’

Fallout Day 2025 came and went without any Fallout 5 news last October, but Howard told disappointed fans that there is still plenty to look forward to. While what that means for Fallout 5 is hard to say, fans can at least rest easy knowing the Bethesda lead is reading all of your comments. Yes, those ones, too.

“Even though I am recording this — it’s not live — and I’m probably watching myself right now from my desk and I’m reading your chat and these… that thing you want and this other thing you want… Hey, we read it all,” Howard said. “Just know we are working on even more. We are looking forward to the day when we can share that with everybody.”

Will Characters from the Fallout Show be in Fallout 5? Maybe!

As Fallout Season 2 scavenged its way onto Prime Video late last year, Howard took the opportunity to remind fans that the show still very much exists within franchise canon. Speaking to BBC, he said that Bethesda is taking the events of the live-action project “into account” as it chips away on its next big entry.

“In short, yes,” Howard said when asked if the Fallout show will impact the game. “Fallout 5 will be existing in a world where the stories and events of the show happened or are happening. We are taking that into account.”

Fallout 5 Is Officially in Preproduction

Today’s Fallout 5 news might have delivered the most substantial update we’ve seen so far. In Bethesda’s letter, the team revealed that the next game is “currently in preproduction.” When it actually entered this early stage is unclear, but the good news is that means development is moving steadily ahead, even if players will be waiting for a very, very long time to actually get their hands on it.

The message also reminded fans that The Elder Scrolls 6 remains Bethesda’s “primary development focus,” with the “majority” of the studio still focused on its wildly popular fantasy series. It also said Fallout 5 remains its “long-range destination,” suggesting that, even five years after publicly teasing that “one-pager,” Howard doesn’t intend to share a release date – or even a window – any time soon.

The letter also confirmed Fallout 5 is being developed on its in-house Creation Engine 3. The note said it “allows our teams to support multiple projects simultaneously with new tools, rendering, and systems that define our games.”

Things are still clearly in the early stages, however, with Howard recently telling Windows Central that it was too soon to comment on whether Fallout 5 would be Xbox exclusive or not. The same interview saw him dismiss the “fan chatter” regarding the rivalry between Bethesda and Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment.

It feels like we know both a lot about Fallout 5 and nothing at all. Hopefully that changes sooner rather than later. Just before Xbox slammed its teams with layoffs a few weeks back, a report stated that CEO Asha Sharma had called on its studios to speed up development on key franchises, such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Post-layoff messaging from Bethesda boss Jill Braff promised the studio would focus on its “strongest franchises,” too.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).