Things are very uncertain right now at Xbox, which means many franchises, like Fallout, are caught in the middle. While Bethesda fired an opening salvo of announcements last week, many questions remain about the new Xbox strategy “reset.”

Exclusivity is a huge question mark for many games, especially since the company seems to be doing a 180 from its platform-proliferation strategy under Phil Spencer. Over in circles like Reddit, fans are worried about exclusivity for these upcoming projects. As Microsoft moves more and more away from its “everything on every platform” strategy, a lot more is up in the air.

Thanks to a new announcement from Microsoft, we know that the re-releases for Fallout 3 and New Vegas are coming at some point in the future, but there isn’t an official landing page with them or confirmed platforms. The reveal seemed like a hasty way to let people know that Bethesda still has multiple projects in active development, but fans are still concerned.

As one writes; “Yeah I do think Fallout and ES are going to be Xbox console exclusives now. Timed or eternal, I don’t know. Xbox needs first-party exclusives because if you don’t give people a reason to buy an Xbox, they won’t. I only bought an Xbox X because my PC was old and I thought I’d only be able to play Xbox first-party games on that.”

Another fan shares the sentiment that the new leadership era seems uncertain so far: “Up until February-March, I was fully expecting the Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas remasters along with Fallout 5 to release on PlayStation. This new lady has completely changed that sentiment and made everything vague and cagey, now that she has shown a renewed commitment towards console exclusivity.”

Others are similarly unsure: “A few months ago I’d have said no, but with the Xbox reset who knows. Honestly, I don’t think anyone knows enough information to say either way right now; maybe any future Xbox game releases that were not already far along in development will give us a clue.”

Some think it’s going to be platform-agnostic: “Console exclusive? Doubtful. Held off PlayStation either permanently or as timed exclusives? Probably. PC is too big of an audience for this franchise to ignore. This isn’t something like Spider-Man or God of War.”

In any case, you might want to play for more Xbox exclusives in general at this point. That return strategy might inform many big upcoming games, including Fallout entries.

Systems

Released

October 19, 2010

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs

Developer(s)

Obsidian Entertainment

Engine

Gamebryo