Fallout: New Vegas’s lead writer has re-joined Obsidian, but insists it’s not for a sequel

The lead writer of Fallout: New Vegas has returned to developer Obsidian, after 14 years away from the company.

John Gonzalez announced the news on his LinkedIn profile this week, confirming he’s taken up the role of creative director. However, according to the writer, his new job is “not FNV2”.

After his previous stint at Obsidian in 2008 – 2011, Gonzalez was notably a writer for Monolith’s Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, the lead writer for Guerrilla’s Horizon: Zero Dawn, and narrative director for its sequel Forbidden West.

Enthusiasm for more Fallout titles from the team behind New Vegas has been growing for years. In 2023, original Fallout co-creators Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky expressed their enthusiasm for a potential Fallout New Vegas remaster.

Then, last year, Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer said that he’d be willing to work on a new Fallout title as long as certain creative criteria were met.

In 2022, it was claimed that very early talks had been held about a potential Fallout New Vegas sequel, with Obsidian and Bethesda owner Microsoft reportedly expressing a lot of interest in making it happen.

Commenting on the future of the Fallout series last year, series boss Todd Howard said the franchise was more popular than ever following the successful release of Amazon’s TV show, which has helped drive a massive increase in game sales. Nevertheless, Howard said Bethesda’s willing to take its time with the next mainline Fallout game in order to “get it right”.

“For other Fallout games in the future, obviously, I can’t talk about those right now, but I would say sort of rushing through them, or we need to get stuff out that is different than the work we’re doing in Fallout 76, we don’t feel like we need to rush any of that,” he said.

“Right now, the Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling. I totally get the desire for a new mainline single player game and look, those things take time. I don’t think it’s bad for people to miss things as well.

“We just want to get it right and make sure that everything we’re doing in a franchise, whether it’s Elder Scrolls or Fallout or now Starfield, that those become meaningful moments for everybody who loves these franchises as much as we do.”