John Gonzalez, lead author on Fallout: New Vegas and Horizon: Zero Daybreak, has introduced his return to Obsidian Leisure after 14 years elsewhere within the business – however not, he suggests, to work on a Fallout: New Vegas 2.
Gonzalez initially joined Obsidian in 2008, after a two yr stint as lead narrative designer at Ubisoft. He was solely with Obsidian for just a little over two years, however his affect – as “lead story man” on the massively beloved Fallout: New Vegas – was important. He was liable for its quest and “most of” its dialogue, introducing characters equivalent to Mr. Home and Sure Man.
After that, Gonzalez spend two and a half years at Monolith Productions, working as lead narrative designer on the acclaimed Center-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and in 2016 he made the transfer to Guerrilla Video games, the place he served as narrative director on the massively standard Horizon: Zero Daybreak and its sequel. Since then he is labored on a lot of smaller initiatives – together with his “final online game novel” God Mode – and now he is come full circle.
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Gonzalez introduced his return to Obsidian Enterintament in a short put up on LinkedIn, and his up to date profile confirms he is formally joined because the studio’s new artistic director. As to what he’ll be engaged on, that is not but identified past obscure allusions to “thrilling instances”. Gonalez did, nevertheless, append a fast notice including, “No, it isn’t Fallout: New Vegas 2.”
After all, “thrilling instances” at Obsidian is a tantalising prospect given the studio’s typical stellar output – which in recent times has included The Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Pentiment. Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 are up subsequent for the studio, however it’s unlikely Gonalez can have a lot, if any, involvement with these, seeing as the primary is out in three weeks and the second is out this yr. All of which suggests he is been drafted in to assist think about Obsidan’s subsequent venture.
The query, although, is whether or not Gonzalez’s try to get forward of the Fallout: New Vegas 2 hypothesis is real or a cheeky little bit of misdirection. In spite of everything, again in 2022, it was reported Obsidian was in “very early” talks with Microsoft to work on a sequel to its much-loved post-apocalyptic RPG, and that there was “loads of curiosity to make it occur.”
Nearly three years later, there’s been no trace of an replace, so it is unclear if these talks had been in any manner fruitful. However even when Gonzalez hasn’t been drafted in to work on a Fallout: New Vegas sequel, there’s sufficient semantic wiggle room in his denial to nonetheless go away hope amongst followers that some type of new Fallout is perhaps on the playing cards. Nonetheless, with Gonzalez having solely simply joined Obsidian in January, it will doubtless be a while earlier than we study something extra – particularly with two huge new Obsidian RPGs releasing this yr.
