Yep, Avellone went out of Obsidian after Pillars of Eternity, he's currently working on Divinity Original Sin 2. I'm not sure about what Obsidian can do without him, their biggest strength was their storytelling, certainly not their technical abilities as they've never released a fully realised game. They are worse than Bethesda on that point.

New Vegas was a giant success, bringing in many millions of dollars in profit, the numbers being very close to Fallout 3, the game it was marketed as a "follow up" to in the marketing.

The bonus was a simple contract, and I don't see unwillingness to break contracts as a sign that they believe New Vegas was a failure. The metacritic ratings were due to a very buggy launch, and I see that as proof that more incubation time is needed if there was to ever be another work in the same vein as New Vegas. So, lessons learned for the future.

Chris is by and large working as freelance right now. But since Paradox Interactive bought White Wolf and contacted Obsidian, Chris also popped into the news on Obsidians twitter. So it wouldn't be far off, if Chris was summoned to make a new AAA title for Paradox in Obsidian regi.

Not going to happen, man. Big corporations don't just go on record and admit product X hasm't met our expectations, etc. It's their job to extract the good part and emphasize the half full glass. The ugly things are kept under the hood unless something ugly happens. Bigger budget for expnasions and hiring new people could always happen regardless what Metacritic says. I know, a lot of disgruntled fans would like to see heads rolling after what they consider a failure, but objectively speaking, the game hasn't bombed. It just didn't live up to the hype, which is pretty common in today's AAA industry.

I think bethesda should better focus on their original product and made a better TES 6: Argonia!!!

Seriously, i "appreciate" they improve some factors of this game, but they remove all the RPG. Is more like an hack and slash with game mechanics from many games like Borderlands, Far Cry, Wolfenstein, Skyrim and Mass Effect for the romance and the dialogue wheel.

I think they try to mix everything they considers good, but they implement in a bad way. Minimalize all the original mechanics, maybe to "safe money" and time. In a sort of way, they did a good job, a nice atmosphere. But they lost the point of what is a Fallout game, and making more like a sort of Skyrim in a post nuclear apocalipse with guns.

They are good with fantasy, but they should let the brand Fallout in the hands of the real one which worked on it.

Why? Fallout is not their real world. They are much more for The Elder Scroll, and give us amazing adventures in the lands of Tamriell. Just please don't ruin even TES:6

FTFY

For Argonia!!!
What if they butcher Argonia, what if they make it like Skyrim but with Argonians? What if the Argonians are just Nords with a tail costume?

Considering that Skyrim is still selling on Steam I doubt that. Yes, this game had a bigger release but time will tell if this games holds up. Lets see how many people are buying FO4 next year.

A lot will depend on the quality of the mods.

I don't take take those ratings seriously, and neither should anyone else.

Bethesda has many fans, but like anything successful has it's detractors as well. In the case of Fallout, a certain segment of the old games fanbase (like the NMA crowd) has created something of a sub-culture of hate for all things Bethesda. This, combined with our modern world of social media and growing intolerance for and willing to attack anything that doesn't conform perfectly to whatever standards this or that group prioritize results in these haters doing everything they can to destroy whatever it is they take exception to.

It's obvious that the user ratings represent a deliberate attempt to sabotage the game. An honest review from even the game's harshest critics would still warrant a six or a seven for the sheer scope of it all. But users try to 'meta' the score and bring it down with preposterous ratings like one or two out of ten. Nobody rational could believe people actually think the game warrants the lowest possible score, and nobody honest would rate it that way. The only reason to rate it that low is to try to bring down the average.

As of this posting, twenty days after release on a Monday night there are 144,661 are actively playing the game on Steam. That's only the PC players who have Steam in online mode (many, like myself keep Steam offline) and doesn't include the greater numbers of console players also playing at the moment. Compared to the number of people who are obviously enjoying the game, the negative ratings on Metacritic coming from Bethesda's detractors ... most of them on the first day before anyone could have possibly played the game enough to make an informed decision ... is utterly negligible.

*cough* Us customers *cough*.. but then when everyone is so blinded by hype these days maybe you are correct.

Don't get me wrong the hype was very real in most aspects of FO4 but there is no excuse for releasing a game with so many bugs no matter how much of an undertaking it was to make. Incompetence is incompetence and reviewers are gamers are getting tired of it hence the 84%. Could of easily been higher if they just cared enough to release a more polished product.

Really? It seems most people familiar with their games say this is their most stable release yet... I've still yet to see anything I'd complain on a forum about and I'm 100+ hours in. Sure there will be issues that people have but some people talk like this is a complete and utter failure of a release. Maybe you're just mad at Bethesda but I think the majority would say that this is their most stable yet

Ive only had like 2-3 noticeable bugs, and only one of them prevented me completing a very small misc quest.

Fallout 4 is, by far, their most stable game yet.

I've had more problems with so called polished releases this year. The Witcher 3 and MGS V as examples, so not sure what you are talking about. For some reason people make a bigger fuss over small glitches in Bethesda games, suddenly its a bug, but when my horse got stuck in the mountain in TW3 it was just a small glitch according to other forum peeps.

In the end, Metacritic and how many GOTY awards a game has won doesn't mean a thing.

It is all a bunch of bovine manure, just like the Oscars.

EDIT: Dragon Age: Glitchquisition was a 100 times more buggy and glitchy at release then Fallout 4. It still got a ton of review that gave it a 10 and plenty of GOTY awards.

Its 5.6 on metacritic.........i listen to users not the paid gaming websites.

Although my personal score for this game would be around 7.8/10 or so....

So yes Bethesda indeed failed to score 85 with this game.

And this is by far the most honest review of F4 that I have come across on internet, it completely translates my experience with this game; http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/20/fallout-4-review-bethesda-never-changes/

Apparently Bethesda does...........

and they all should because a massive number of people use that website.........

User scores on Metacritic are unreliable, plenty of people just love to "vote bomb" a game simply because they hate a type of game, just to troll or another number of reasons.

Personally I think the best way to help you form an opinion about a game before release is to find a reviewer/critic that you trust. For me peronally that would be; Angry Joe, Jim Sterling and TotalBiscuit. I don't always agree with them, and I don't take what they say as gospel, but I know what they like and dislike about games and how that compares to what I like and dislike.

Metacritic is inherently flawed because of how easy it is to manipulate, the more people realize that, and the more people will stop using it blindly as a guideline the better.

As evident, I am very disappointed in Fallout 4 but during my playtime in the game I have not experienced one bug or glitch. I absolutely love The Witcher 3, but I have and continue to experience some weird glitches.

Fallout 4 is Beth's most stable release yet.

money walks and [censored] only talks.

[censored] metacritic, the sales of fallout 4 is all you need to know for how good the game is.

I like to think that since we're several years further, we have come to the realization that basing financial reward or support based on meta-critic scores is ridiculous, considering that they literally mean nothing.

I like this news. It won't change anything in terms of Beth's public approach, but I really hope it makes them look themselves in the mirror and consider what they've done here. If they missed their own internal goals in terms of critics reviews and ratings, then that really says a lot and they will need to consider that in the future.

Yes, add that contracts of this size are an matter of negotiation, might even be Obsidian who asked for it as they thought it would be easier to get than an sales goal.

yeahhh lets not agree there Witcher 3 isnt that polished as the hype show up. It have alot of issues at lunch.

Plus Fo4 isnt a step down from previous game is actually a step forward. The game have improve alot over the pass game.

i mean is like life. U need to learn to live with what life give u. Bethesda know what they doing with Fallout why, bc they aiming the game to a different aim of RPG gamers. Someone make a really nice post about the different style of RPG on video games and what it look like Bethesda is aiming Fallout and TES. Is bad?? no, is good? maybe. Why isnt bad, bc lets be real the only reason Bethesda keep making Fallout games is bc they making money with it, is the same for TES game.

They are a big companies so they dont make game for the art, like most Inde games are. We need to learn to accept this, u will be alot happier that way. This is coming from someone that been playing WoW for 11 years now, and i have see that game become different over and over to keep attracting more and more ppl, bc companies need money.

For me Fo4 improve alot from Fo3 and i can only dream what i can wait to see on the next ES game.