Fallout: New Vegas fans hoping for a remaster may have just had those hopes dashed, as a recent comment from a former Obsidian designer has shut down rumours.
According to Chris Avellone, who was a senior designer in Fallout: New Vegas, you shouldn’t expect an Oblivion-style remaster of the game from Bethesda.
In an interview with Fallout YouTuber TKs-Mantis, Avellone commented on the rumours that Bethesda is working on remasters of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.
“I don't think Bethesda has the engineering knowhow to make a remaster of New Vegas at all,” Avellone said, referring to a potential remaster of New Vegas in the style of the Oblivion remaster from last year.
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Avellone adds that he believes it would be a fundamental impossibility for Bethesda to remaster Fallout: New Vegas, saying that, “The very last milestone for New Vegas was to deliver all the source code and the ability to make the build and Bethesda were like ‘we'll pay you $10,000 for that milestone’.”
He alleges that CEO of Obsidian Feargus Urquhart turned down the $10,000 check.
“Now, what that milestone really meant was if all those assets are given to Bethesda, that means they can recreate the game at any time,” essentially implying that Bethesda doesn’t have access to the source code for Fallout: New Vegas.
“They may have the they may have aspects of the code, but everyone that I talked to after that period of time said they had no idea how to reassemble it.”
The Fallout: New Vegas Remaster Must Be Done In The Same Way As Last Year's Oblivion Remaster, Avellone Says
The 2025 remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was made by wrapping the Creation Engine (the engine used for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4) codebase in Unreal Engine’s visuals.
This is something that Avellone agrees is “one of the only ways they could do it”, and that it would make sense to try that out with Fallout 3 before New Vegas “just to see what all the problems and issues are as a result.”
However, with the source code allegedly not being in Bethesda’s hands, it’s possible that this may never see the light of day unless Bethesda and Obsidian can work together on that. Even with both companies sharing Microsoft as a parent company, Avellone argues that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re more open to working together.
“There's an impression in people's minds that will make sense to them. ‘Oh well, if they're all under the Microsoft umbrella, they're all going to cooperate and everyone's going to get along. Everyone's going to share everything.’
“But the Sony model has already proved that's not the case. Those studios don't always cooperate with each other. Sometimes they see each other as rivals. Sometimes they demand exorbitant amounts of money to share assets. Like it's not always one big happy family.
“With Microsoft it may seem like they could punch through all of that. I am not sure that they can.”
The Fallout 3 remaster has been rumoured for quite some time, going all the way back to leaked court documents from Microsoft which referred to remasters of Oblivion and Fallout 3 as being in the pipeline. However, there hasn't been any official acknowledgement by Bethesda of remasters of either Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas.
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