Just a few days after renowned game designer Chris Avellone said that Bethesda didn't truly understand the Fallout franchise, the lead developer of Team FOLON (the studio that launched Fallout London in July 2024), Dean Carter, told Esports.net that he feels Bethesda should sell off their IPs (Fallout and also Elder Scrolls). His dissatisfaction stems mainly from the writing of the most recent games and from the release of Fallout 76, which obviously didn't cater to single player fans.
With the greatest respect to Bethesda, I feel like they’ve probably gone one game too far, if I’m honest. I feel like it’s time to go off into the sunset and look at selling off your IP because people like the franchise, I’m just honestly not sure it’s in the right hands, and it really hurts me to say that because I love Bethesda. The writing has just gone downhill. I know as a company, they have to try new things, but Fallout 76 caters to an audience, but it doesn’t cater to the people who want to play a single-player Fallout game.
However, Carter does add that if Bethesda could add some talented writers to their team, their next games could still be great.
I think if they’re gonna stay on board, they can stay with what they’ve got. I don’t think Skyrim is the best game of all time, like some people. It’s a very, very good game. I just feel like they need to improve the writing, I really do. I reckon if they could inject in the quality of some good writers, then the next Elder Scrolls game will be great and the next Fallout game will be great, but they need better writers, honestly.
The TEAM FOLON lead then said he's 'worried' Bethesda will keep using the Creation Engine in future games, although he clarifies it's not actually a bad engine:
I understand that it is proprietary. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of pluses to it. I’m not just someone that’s going to sit there and lie and say it’s a terrible engine. It could be better, yes, but it’s not a bad engine but I do think it started to show its age. It needs to be overhauled somewhat.
If they can overhaul it, then there’s no reason why they couldn’t push its limits and start adding things like drivable cars, maybe even metro systems like what we built in Fallout: London. I mean, if we found a way, I’m sure they could bring some of this stuff back into Fallout 5.
After the successful release of Fallout London, Team FOLON has registered as an official game developer and is now working on a new indie project built on Epic's Unreal Engine. However, they'll still release the last two planned Fallout London DLCs: Last Orders and Wildcard.
As for Bethesda, in a recent Fallout 3 retrospective, Studio and Production Director at Bethesda Game Studios Angela Browder said that the pre-release skepticism following their acquisition of the IP was, to some degree, freeing. Needless to say, the team has absolutely no plans to follow Carter's suggestion to sell their prized franchises and is instead doubling down on them, with The Elder Scrolls VI next in the pipeline. Given the studio's track record and the fact that their previous game, Starfield, launched in September 2023, a debut between late 2027 and 2028 seems likely.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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