Fallout 5 will arrive after The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield, says Todd Howard

Bethesda is set to make Fallout 5 after the studio has completed work on Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, it has been confirmed.

Speaking with IGN, Bethesda Game Studios game director and executive producer Todd Howard revealed that the next entry in the popular post-apocalyptic RPG is definitely in the works, however, is quite far down the line. 

"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. We have some other projects that we look at from time to time as well," he said. 

With development on Starfield beginning in 2015 and not releasing until 2023 and The Elder Scrolls 6 only beginning pre-production now, it could easily be another decade before the next Fallout arrives. Howard further acknowledged how long these games take to develop: "I wish they came out faster, I really do, we’re trying as hard as we can, but we want them to be as best as they can be for everybody."

The latest mainline Fallout game was released in 2015 to positive reception, before the less so-popular Fallout 76 spinoff arrived three years later. Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim launched in 2011 with being announced for The Elder Scrolls 6 outside of a brief teaser trailer shown in 2018. 

At the very least, we did recently get the first substantial details about Starfield as part of the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase 2022, including how the ambitious game will feature over 1,000 planets. Howard then confirmed to IGN that Starfield will feature more handcrafted content than any other Bethesda title with New Atlantis being its biggest city ever created and the narrative taking around 30 to 40 hours to complete. 

Starfield is scheduled to launch in the first half of 2023 across Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Microsoft Windows. Looking for something new to play? Check out T3's top picks for the best games to play on Xbox from 2022 so far.