Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is a future game planned to be created and published by Bethesda Softworks after Fallout 3 (2008). Initially, in 2004, Bethesda licensed from Interplay the rights to create and publish three Fallout games. However, in 2007 Bethesda purchased the entire franchise, and Interplay licensed back from Bethesda the rights to a Fallout MMORPG.

Bethesda's Pete Hines said: "The whole reason we went out and acquired the license and that we now own Fallout is that we clearly intended to make more than one." He also added: "This is not something we're going to do once and then go away and never do it again. When that will be or how long that will be God only knows, but we acquired it specifically because we wanted to own it and develop it and work on it like we do with The Elder Scrolls."

In August 2010, Todd Howard revealed in an interview with Eurogamer that Bethesda is working on two projects; one has been in development for 2 years (beginning after Fallout 3 was released), and the other is still in pre-production. Given the fact that Fallout: New Vegas is finished, it is reasonable to assume Fallout 4 is the title in production, and TES V is the title farther along in development. Given Bethesda's history of taking 3 or more years to develop and release a game, it's likely that we won't be hearing any news about Fallout 4 for a number of years.