A Long Awaited Renewal of Friendship By: Tori Sitz Microsoft was placed as the third largest video game company by largest.org, making ​ ​ around 11 billion dollars in 2019. They own many gaming companies such as inXile Entertainment, Obsidian Entertainment and most notably: Mojang. Microsoft recently bought ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, in September for 7.5 billion dollars. This makes Microsoft the owner of popular Bethesda franchises such as Skyrim and ​ ​ Fallout. More particularly, Fallout New Vegas which was the second Fallout game Bethesda ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ made after buying the franchise from Interplay Entertainment. Bethesda and Obsidian partnered together to make it happen, but had a falling out with each other after it was published, causing them to not make anymore games together. Now that Miscrosft owns both Bethesda and Obsidian, there's been talk about a long awaited Fallout New Vegas 2. ​ ​ Fallout is a post-apocalyptic open-world role playing game that is all in one timeline, ​ meaning that all the games take place between the years 2102 through 2287. Although the games are all in one timeline, they are for the most part in different areas. For example Fallout, Fallout ​ 2 and Fallout New Vegas all take place in California but in different times and areas. Fallout 3 ​ ​ ​ ​ takes place in Washington D.C. and Fallout 4 takes place in Boston, Massachusetts. Another ​ ​ notable difference about the Fallout series is how different the gameplay is. Although Fallout 3 ​ ​ ​ through Fallout 76 were all made by Bethesda, they all have their own charm, mainly because of ​ ​ the different companies Bethesda partnered with for each game. Fallout New Vegas isn’t only ​ ​ favorited in the Fallout series, fans argue that it's the best game Obsidian has made. As ​ ​ mentioned before, Obsidian and Bethesda no longer work well together, but they’ll have no choice but to if they have the same parent company. With that being said, what makes Fallout New Vegas so good? Like all Fallout games, ​ ​ ​ ​ there's many mini stories/ side quests within the main story. Although for starters, Fallout New ​ Vegas has 250 total quests, while the others hang around the 100-150 range. Not only that, the ​ DLC’s (downloadable content available for purchase) are way more in depth and add to the main story instead of just adding more content like the other games tend to do. Another thing New ​ Vegas captures perfectly is how much the player's decision matters. In other games the player's ​ decision is there and important but while playing New Vegas the player's decision has a greater ​ ​ impact, they can fail more quests and generally have more dialogue options than normal. To have another Fallout game as great as Fallout New Vegas would greatly benefit Bethesda's ​ ​ ​ ​ image, considering the mess of their last Fallout game. Many fans are waiting to see what ​ ​ Microsoft is going to do for the Fallout franchise. ​ ​ Most fans, like James Romeo, think that “Microsoft will be a great parent company (for Bethesda.)” Microsoft will be able to “...help (Bethesda) in many different ways into new game models…(such as) switching from single player open world games to multiplayer open world games on 32-64 player servers.” Like many fans, they aren’t here for the technical aspect, they’re interested in the game itself. Most are looking forward to “...seeing a new or remade Fallout New ​ Vegas and or Fallout game.” ​ ​ ​ Will fans get a new Fallout game? It’s a waiting game at this point. But at least in the ​ ​ end, it’s a win-win all around. Microsoft is expanding and getting new companies to work with. Bethesda is getting a fresh start to come up with news games and redeem their name. Finally, Obsidian is going to be able to reconcile with an old friend. Hopefully, since they have the same parent company, nothing goes south this time. And hopefully, we have a new game soon. .