Although rumors of a new Fallout game had been surfacing the internet for years, Bethesda’s announcement of Fallout 4 surprised many as it came just months before the game’s release. And now, Creative Director Todd Howard wants that to become a “norm” in the industry. In a new interview with IGN, Howard said that announcing games too soon can take away some of the excitement during the waiting period in between the initial announcement and the actual release.
I would like that to become the norm. I hope that the way we did it with Fallout changes how a lot of people do it, and how successful it was doing it that way. I think a lot of people are going to start doing that. That’s my hope. As a gamer, too, I want a period of time to be excited, and I don’t want that to go away. Sometimes they announce, I get so excited, ‘I want to buy this right now!’ And then, I’ve gotta wait.
In a separate interview with GameSpot on the same topic, Howard further said that early announcements can result in tricky situations in that fans want to know more about a given title but developers are unable to answer specific questions. “It’s just a bad conversation to have,” he said.
The other thing is, while you’re making a game, you’re figuring out, ‘OK, what’s really good about it?’ ‘What’s this?’ ‘What’s this?’ If you’re talking about that too early, people aren’t getting excited, they’re getting anxious.
However, Howard admitted that Fallout 4 had the added advantage of being part of a successful franchise.
When asked if the recently announced long-term projects will be revealed the same way, Howard said, “Absolutely.” He also teased that the time span between announcements and release dates might actually be shorter than Fallout 4‘s.
Would our readers like to see more games announced nearer the time of release?
