“Bethesda Doesn’t Have the Right Expertise”: Fallout: New Vegas Designer Explains Why a Remaster Isn’t So Simple

In an interview with the YouTube channel TKs-Mantis, Chris Avellone — co-author of Fallout 2, co-founder of Obsidian Entertainment, and one of the key designers behind Fallout: New Vegas — shared his thoughts on the possibility of a remaster. He didn’t sound particularly optimistic.

According to Avellone, the main issue is that Obsidian never handed over the final source code of the game to Bethesda Game Studios after development wrapped. That means the studio can’t simply “touch up” New Vegas — it would essentially have to rebuild the game from scratch.

One possible solution Avellone suggests is to take the original version running on the Creation Engine and wrap it with a visual layer in Unreal Engine. A similar approach was reportedly used for the remaster of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. However, he believes Bethesda would first want to test this method on a Fallout 3 remaster before moving on to New Vegas. In any case, the industry has moved far ahead technically since the original game’s development — and Avellone has recently spoken about the technical struggles Bethesda faced back then.

Technically, collaboration is possible: both Obsidian and Bethesda are now part of Microsoft. But that doesn’t guarantee it will happen.

Meanwhile, there are already signs that a Fallout 3 remaster may indeed be in development — insiders have reported on the project, and online store listings have briefly mentioned Fallout 3 Remastered. If that’s the case, New Vegas could simply be next in line.

What do you think — does New Vegas need a remaster, or is it better left untouched as a classic? Share your thoughts in the comments.