Following confirmation that Xbox will cut a total of 3,200 jobs by July 2027, most of the studios still under their umbrella underwent significant upheavals, including studios that most believed would be safe from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's business reset, such as Bethesda Game Studios. Although the developer behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout was affected by the Microsoft layoffs, it confirmed last week that it would double down on its two tentpole franchises, with remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas on the way ahead of the fifth entry in the series. This sudden and unexpected confirmation seemed to suggest that Xbox is now […]

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Following on from recent rumours, Bethesda has now confirmed that Obsidian Entertainment is working on a new Fallout game. Beyond that though, there are remasters on the way for both Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, and Bethesda is beginning pre-production on Fallout 5, moving up the timeline for the next mainline game significantly.

If Bethesda had been allowed to continue on its planned track, Fallout 5 work would not have begun properly until after the release of The Elder Scrolls 6 – a game that is still multiple years away from release. However, under new Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, those plans have now changed. As part of an Xbox ‘reset' intended to funnel efforts towards their biggest IP, Bethesda now has a real roadmap in place for Fallout. We'll still have to wait quite a while for Fallout 5, but there are many other projects also in development that should release in the meantime.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Bethesda's Todd Howard said “we could not be more excited to work with Obsidian again”, adding that the “timing is right” to bring Obsidian back into the fold. Whether or not you believe that largely depends on whether you believe the rumours that Obsidian had pitched new a new Fallout game since joining Xbox and was turned down.

As part of the newly shared roadmap, Bethesda has confirmed that Fallout 5 is in pre-production and will be built using the same Creation Engine 3 tools being used for The Elder Scrolls 6. Bethesda also has teams working on remasters for Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and Obsidian itself is now working on a new Fallout game as well. There are no release dates yet for any of these projects, but Bethesda did tease that it would be hosting a special Fallout Day event in Washington next year – the same setting as Fallout 3, so we anticipate an announcement happening then.

Zenimax Online Studios is also being refocused to work directly with Bethesda on future Elder Scrolls content, so ESO will continue to be supported, and they may end up helping out a bit on The Elder Scrolls 6 as well.

KitGuru Says: While layoffs are never a good thing, it does sound like Bethesda is going in the direction that fans have wanted for a long time. BGS should have transitioned into a true multi-game studio a long time ago, but better late than never.

In the wake of the recent and ongoing sweeping changes at Xbox, there has been plenty of discourse surrounding how this has and will continue to impact Microsoft’s various development studios. One team hit hard by the lay-offs has been Obsidian Entertainment – leading to the cancellation of a sequel to Avowed. According to insiders however, the project is still going ahead, with hopes that Microsoft might ‘uncancel’ it later down the line.

As reported by known industry insider Jason Schreier, the recent happenings at Microsoft has led to a great deal of confusion and lack of clarity across various Xbox Game Studios.

While we previously spoke on how Obsidian Entertainment were dealing with these changes, Schreier revealed just how in-flux things appear to be, taking to his YouTube channel to claim: “Obsidian have a small team that was working on Avowed 2, that's going to still work on Avowed 2 even though it is canceled, while they wait for other projects like Fallout to be ready for them.”

For the uninitiated, it was recently reported that Obsidian Entertainment have now been tasked with making a new entry in the Fallout franchise, leading to the aforementioned Avowed 2 being cancelled.

According to Schreier however, the project was “further along than most people would guess for a sequel to a game that came out last year,” adding that “I think their hope is perhaps they'll get it so close to finish that Xbox will look at it and say ‘Okay you can finish and release this, it won't cost that much more to finish it.”’

Based on everything we’ve heard, it seems quite clear that these latest changes at Xbox have up-ended many of the console maker’s previous plans and strategies. It will be interesting to see what ultimately becomes of Obsidian’s Avowed 2.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of all the current Xbox drama? Is Microsoft trying to change too much too quickly? Let us know down below.

With PlayStation announcing its annual Days of Play sale will kick off tomorrow, May 27, 2026, the platform has also revealed the PS Plus Essential games for June 2026, headlined by Grounded: Fully Yoked Edition for both PS5 and PS4. The self-described "ultimate" version of the survival game from Xbox Game Studios-owned Obsidian Entertainment joins the fray, but another game added last month stays on for the FIFA World Cup. That's EA Sports FC 26, unsurprisingly. If you didn't get a chance to download it or even just add it to your library for the month of May 2026 (which […]

Read full article at https://wccftech.com/ps-plus-essential-june-2026-grounded-warhammer-40k-darktide/

For years, fans have wanted to see Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas remastered for newer hardware. Development may have actually just begun on that exact thing, according to a teaser from Iron Galaxy Studios. 

In a teaser image shared by the studio, Iron Galaxy declared that it had held its February meeting, attaching an image of the ‘Please Stand By' loading screen from Fallout: New Vegas. The belief now is that Iron Galaxy has been tapped to aid in the development of a New Vegas remaster. So far, neither Iron Galaxy nor Bethesda have denied the rumour.

Iron Galaxy Studios has worked closely with both Xbox and Bethesda in the past, handling development for Killer Instinct 3, as well as providing support for projects like The Elder Scrolls Online, Skyrim (various ports) and Fallout 76.

Considering Iron Galaxy's history with Bethesda and the Fallout IP, the studio does make sense for helping out on a remaster. Hopefully it will match the same quality bar that Virtuos set with the Oblivion remaster.

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KitGuru Says: Would you like to see a New Vegas remaster? Or would you prefer to revisit one of the other Fallout games? 

While initial impressions surrounding Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed left plenty to be desired (in part due to a disparity between fan expectations based on pre-release trailers and the final product), the game itself did offer plenty of fun in its own right, with satisfying wand combat, solid exploration and more. One year on from the game’s release on Xbox and PC, Avowed is now officially available on Sony’s PlayStation 5 – released in alignment with the game’s big anniversary update.

Taking to their blog to detail the update, the team at Obsidian Entertainment showcased Avowed’s 1st anniversary update, writing:

“It has been one year since the launch of Avowed and the team is ending its post-launch roadmap with a substantial anniversary update built with both returning and new players in mind. This release delivers long-requested community features and a broad slate of quality-of-life improvements, including a fan driven feature to bring Avowed even closer to its Pillars of Eternity franchise roots.”

The full list of everything having been added with the update can be found HERE. but some of the most notable include:

• Three new playable species
  • Dwarves
  • Orlans
  • Aumaua
• Camp mirror for full character/species customisation
• Stat bonuses for each species
• Stat bonuses for each background
• New Game+ with additional modifiers
• Full custom difficulty modification
• New Quarterstaff weapon type
• Photo mode

The full patch notes can be found HERE and goes into far greater depth regarding the minutiae of the update. That said, while this latest update does not fundamentally change Avowed or overhaul it, version 2.0 feels like what the developers always intended the game’s experience to be.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of this anniversary update? Is it too little too late? What did you think Avowed would be like prior to its launch? Let us know down below.