With a setting that will be far too real to be enjoyable by the time it comes out, thanks to the threats of nuclear war and climate change, Fallout 5 might just not be any fun at all. Given the impending climate disaster looming over everyone's heads, not to mention the increasingly volatile situation with Russia and Ukraine threatening to spill over into an even larger conflict, the world can sometimes seem as if it's teetering on the brink more than ever. With that in mind, it's probably for the best that Bethesda is dragging its feet on a new entry in its Fallout franchise.
Even then, though Bethesda confirmed Fallout 5 will be the next game after Elder Scrolls 6, by the time it does come out, it might be even less welcome than it is now. Fallout, as a series, is a parody of exactly the kinds of things that are immediate concerns in the world right now, which could make its release a more complicated thing than Fallout 4's was. There's a good chance it might not be greeted with the same fanfare as its predecessors.
The original Fallout's prologue backstory about the state of its divergent timeline looks a little more familiar than might be comfortable as time in the real world goes on, so if Bethesda doesn't hop to it with making the next game, Fallout 5 might end up being the most realistic game in the series - only this time from more than just being able to recreate a realistic Richard Nixon in Fallout 4.
At This Rate, Fallout 5 Might Even Be A Nice Escape From Reality
Even if the business overseas is resolved without nuclear escalations, there's still the matter of the impending climate apocalypse to worry about. Bethesda, of course, can seem to move as slowly making the next iterations of its anticipated games as world leaders move to curb climate change, and the software giant's need to take forever releasing entries in its mainline IPs could prove to come back to bite them in this case.
That said, if real life doesn't start looking up a bit, maybe Fallout 5 will end up feeling like a nostalgic fantasy from a more naïve time - which might be for the best, especially if it's got enough content to give people an escape from too-real problems. Fallout 4 is one of many modern single-player games that take a long time to complete, with around 114 hours in its Game Of The Year edition. As such, a follow-up should likely have around the same amount of content, if not more, and that means a longer development time if crunch is to be avoided. However, Fallout's satirical sendups of modern society and its volatile relationship to both nuclear power and the environment is could get a lot less funny in coming years.
After the Starfield, Bethesda plans to release Elder Scrolls 6 and then Fallout 5. But if it wants a functional society to actually release these games to, Bethesda might just want to pick up the pace, lest Fallout 5's release end up limited only to vault-dwellers.
