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 somewhat over two years, however his impression – as “lead story man” on the vastly beloved Fallout: New Vegas – was vital. He was liable for its quest and “most of” its dialogue, introducing characters comparable 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 vastly fashionable Horizon: Zero Daybreak and its sequel. Since then he is labored on plenty 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 inventive director. As to what he’ll be engaged on, that is not but recognized past obscure allusions to “thrilling occasions”. Gonalez did, nevertheless, append a fast observe including, “No, it isn’t Fallout: New Vegas 2.”
In fact, “thrilling occasions” at Obsidian is a tantalising prospect given the studio’s standard stellar output – which lately has included The Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Pentiment. Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 are up subsequent for the studio, nevertheless it’s unlikely Gonalez could 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 mission.
The query, although, is whether or not Gonzalez’s try and 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 “a whole lot 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 have been in any means 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 may be on the playing cards. Nonetheless, with Gonzalez having solely simply joined Obsidian in January, it’s going to doubtless be a while earlier than we study something extra – particularly with two huge new Obsidian RPGs releasing this yr.
