It’s been a busy time (that’s an understatement) for Xbox, Bethesda, Obsidian, and the Fallout IP, and now Bethesda has put the axe to a new Fallout game set in New York. Of course, it’s worth noting that there are quite a few official releases on the horizon, however far out they may be. Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters are officially in development, Bethesda’s Fallout 5 is in some stage of development, and Obsidian is working on a new Fallout game.
All of this comes as part of Xbox’s recent “reset,” which not only involved layoffs at all of the mentioned companies, but also resulted in a restructuring where Obsidian falls under Bethesda’s umbrella. Bethesda’s president says that this will not have a major impact on how the company works with Obsidian and on the Fallout IP, given it already has quite a bit in the past, but hopefully the future of Fallout and the developers involved are all the better for it.
Bethesda Shuts Down Fallout: New York Claude Game
Nonetheless, anything Fallout from anywhere else is a no-fly zone. Bethesda is typically quite friendly to mods and fan creations with its popular games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but not with more “serious” encroaching projects. In late September, a self-described “AI creative” named Chris First posted a tech demo-style trailer where Claude Opus 5.5 made a browser-playable version of Fallout’s Wasteland in New York City. It included commonplace RPG features like quests and dialogue trees, but also iconic Fallout features like VATS and a Pip-Boy.
Find the odd one out before the timer hits zero.
That didn’t sit well with Bethesda, it seems, as First later shared an apparent cease-and-desist letter sent by the gaming giant. First has taken the game offline, but not without throwing shade at the company for not releasing a Fallout game since Fallout 76 in 2018. As First posted on Twitter, “How about you make a Fallout game instead so I don’t have to?” Interestingly, the comments go about as well as expected.
Many point out that it’s likely because it uses the Fallout name and features, so technically speaking, First can have his post-apocalyptic New York City game if he changed the name and reworked some of the features associated with the property. Many, however, were quick to point out that, of course, this would happen with someone use Claude GenAI to generate a game for a well-known IP, and many fans were generally angry, rightfully so, about the GenAI use invoking the Fallout name anyway. There’s a good chance that’s how it got Bethesda’s attention, too.
Nonetheless, New York City would be a prime location for a Fallout game. Perhaps Obsidian will make its game set there. Perhaps that’s where Fallout 5 is set. Perhaps not. What’s true for all of the official Fallout games in development is that they will be of higher quality than Claude’s version.
