Why Skyrim never got its own Fallout: New Vegas
Skyrim never received its own Fallout: New Vegas, and the designer who helped lead it says The Elder Scrolls Online is part of the reason.
Kurt Kuhlmann, co-lead designer on Skyrim, said Bethesda never handed its fantasy world to an outside studio for a one-off entry in the way it did with Fallout. He made the comments in an interview with FRVR, as reported via VGC, Eurogamer reported on 29 September 2026.
His first explanation was practical. “The Elder Scrolls Online took the heat off,” Kuhlmann said, because it was an ongoing Elder Scrolls product creating new content constantly. The game, a massively multiplayer online adventure where thousands of players share the same world, gave fans somewhere to go between main entries.
Kuhlmann added that many players now know The Elder Scrolls primarily through that online game rather than the single-player adventures. That steady stream of quests and expansions meant less pressure for a stopgap release.
The second reason was about control. Kuhlmann said Fallout: New Vegas, the Fallout spin-off made outside Bethesda, created a perception of rivalry over who makes a better Fallout game between Bethesda and Obsidian. Players still argue the point.
Game director Todd Howard, he said, is very protective of The Elder Scrolls series and did not want a repeat of that New Vegas situation. Eurogamer had earlier reported, on 25 September 2026, that Bethesda never pursued an Elder Scrolls spin-off akin to Fallout: New Vegas for that reason.
A New Vegas-style project would mean letting another team interpret the lore, systems and tone of the world. Bethesda did that once with Fallout. It has never done it with Elder Scrolls.
What makes this stand out is how Kuhlmann describes the choices inside Bethesda. He has claimed Howard pushed Bethesda Game Studios to make Starfield instead of The Elder Scrolls 6, a decision that shaped the studio’s slate for years.
Kuhlmann speaks from long service. He first worked at Bethesda as a junior designer in the late 1990s, rejoined as a senior designer in 2003, and stayed for more than 20 years. He served as the studio’s Elder Scrolls loremaster, the keeper of the series’ fictional history, before leaving in 2023.
For fans, this means the gap was not an oversight. It was a choice shaped by an always-on game and a desire to keep one team in charge.
The Elder Scrolls 6 remains in development with no public release target.
