As a franchise, Fallout is in a bizarrely good place right now, particularly considering the fact that there hasn't been a single-player entry in the main series since Fallout 4 dropped all the way back in 2015.
Fallout 76 continues to draw in new players and roll out regular updates, while even games like Fallout Shelter remain popular, with the developer conitnuing to support that in meaningful ways in 2026. The Prime Video adaptation has been a huge win in its own right, adding to the lore in a meaningful way whilst respecting the time of both new and existing fans.
All of that said, we really do want to play Fallout 5 at some point, but given what we have already heard from the developer, it really could be a long time before we get to do so.
You could easily be forgiven for having forgotten this already, but Todd Howard gave an interview to IGN back in 2022 in which he dropped a fairly innocuous quote that has enormous consequences for the developer's plans for Fallout 5:
"Yes, Elder Scrolls 6 is in pre-production and, you know, we’re going to be doing Fallout 5 after that, so...
