Yes, Fallout: New Vegas 2 Was Real – Briefly
For years, Fallout fans have speculated about a direct follow‑up to Obsidian’s cult classic. Now we know a Fallout New Vegas 2 was more than wishful thinking. In a recent longform interview with YouTuber TKs‑Mantis, former Obsidian senior designer Chris Avellone confirmed that leadership at the studio actively thought they’d be able to make a New Vegas sequel. According to Avellone, even some of the decisions in the original game and its DLC – like setting off multiple nukes to destabilize the NCR, Brotherhood of Steel, and the wider West Coast – were made to tee up future storylines in a New Vegas sequel. That internal confidence did not last. As Avellone bluntly puts it, those New Vegas sequel plans "quickly evaporated," leaving only hints of what could have been buried in the Mojave’s branching endings and post‑credits slides.
Why the New Vegas Sequel Plans Fell Apart
Avellone stops short of listing a blow‑by‑blow of how New Vegas 2 died, but the context around his comments fills in some likely reasons. Obsidian never owned Fallout; Bethesda did, and would have final say on which studios got to play in that sandbox. After New Vegas, Bethesda’s internal team pivoted to its own future Fallout games, while Obsidian moved on to other RPGs under different publishers. That timing gap meant the studio’s carefully laid sequel hooks – from warring NCR caravans to a more destabilized California – had nowhere to go. More recently, Avellone has poured cold water on hopes of a revival, saying a New Vegas sequel "will not happen in the next six years at least, if ever." Combined with Bethesda’s current focus on The Elder Scrolls VI before returning to Fallout, the window for an Obsidian‑led sequel has effectively closed for now.
Fallout 5 Speculation and the Allure of New Orleans
With New Vegas 2 off the table for the foreseeable future, attention has shifted to Fallout 5 speculation and where Bethesda might take the series next. One setting keeps resurfacing: a Fallout New Orleans setting. Avellone reveals that Obsidian once discussed New Orleans as a possible location while they still believed a New Vegas follow‑up was possible, inspired partly by the post‑apocalyptic comic Grendel: Four Devils, One Hell. He describes the city’s "vibe" and "flavor" as "so cool" and insists "there's a lot of potential there." Fans seem to agree. Recent community debates and Reddit pitches have championed New Orleans as a "perfect" future Fallout location, imagining fan boats, flooded ruins, gatorclaws, and Southern Gothic horror melded with retro‑futurist fallout tech. Even if it never bears the New Vegas name, the bayous and levees of Louisiana remain high on the community’s wishlist for future Fallout games.
What a ‘New Vegas 2’ Spirit Could Look Like
If a literal Fallout New Vegas 2 is unlikely, what about a spiritual successor? Avellone himself suggests fans temper expectations around both a sequel and a New Vegas remaster, questioning whether Bethesda has the engineering muscle – or even all the original source code – to revisit the game in a big way. Instead, the “New Vegas spirit” may live on in several forms. One possibility is a future Fallout spin‑off that taps a new locale like New Orleans but leans into the moral ambiguity, factional intrigue, and reactive quest design that defined Obsidian’s classic. Another is outside Bethesda entirely: games such as Atomfall, a survival‑driven, post‑disaster adventure that drew immediate Fallout comparisons, show other studios are ready to explore similar themes in their own worlds. For players, the most realistic hope is less “New Vegas 2” by name and more Fallout – or Fallout‑like – games that carry its storytelling DNA forward.
