As one of Bethesda's biggest and most beloved series, it's not much of a revelation to hear the company is already mulling over a new Fallout instalment, but studio director Todd Howard has now talked a little about a potential new series entry, confirming that while an idea exists, Fallout 5 is still a long way off.

Speaking to IGN as part of a Skyrim 10th anniversary retrospective, Howard explained that currently the studio has a "one-pager" for Fallout 5, outlining what it wants to do with the series. However, sci-fi adventure Starfield, due to release next year, and The Elder Scrolls 6 - which was still in its design phase as of June this year - remain the studio's priority, meaning it could be years before work on the next Fallout begins in earnest.

When asked about the possibility of shifting responsibility for a new Fallout over to another studio - after all, Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian is now also within the Xbox Game Studios family - Howard only offered that "Fallout's really part of our DNA here".

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Ever felt like Fallout 4 could stand to be a little more, well, Blair Witch? If you fancy stumbling around in the dark while being chased by unseen forces, this might be the mod for you.

The Wilderness is a chunky Fallout 4 PC mod by El Ha that offers a worldspace "at least as big" as Nuka World, with a bunch of abandoned buildings and a spooky main quest. It's a map that often feels deliberately barren, with the player encouraged to traverse vast distances in search of shelter and supplies. Thanks to the gloomy atmosphere created through a combination of bad weather and a synth-heavy soundtrack, it's easy to get jumpy - and you'll probably find yourself getting creeped out by the landscape as much as the actual jumpscares. Any good horror is about tension, after all.

On installing the mod, players are presented with a fast travel option north of Sanctuary called "The Wilderness". Travelling there (and walking forwards a little bit) will transport you to The Wilderness itself, a vast wasteland that feels a lot more abandoned than anything in the Commonwealth. You can explore the area in your own time if you fancy, but to start the main quest, you'll need to rummage around in the skeleton near the start area. This will give you your first map and a rather ominous quest message about avoiding "whatever is following you".

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River, the real-life dog who inspired Dogmeat from Fallout 4, has passed away.

Joel Burgess, studio director at Capybara Games and former developer on Fallout 3, 4 and 76 at Bethesda, took to Twitter to look back at her impact on Fallout 4.

Dogmeat is a recurring dog non-player character in the Fallout series who acts as a possible companion to the player. Dogmeat is one of the most popular companions in the series, and was even a part of trailers made to promote Fallout 4.

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You've thought it, I've thought it, but the question of what London would look like in the Fallout universe has never truly been answered... until now.

A Fallout mod team is working on a huge project called Fallout: London, which is described as a "DLC-sized mod for Bethesda's Fallout 4". Although the team has been issuing updates on progress for some time, yesterday the group released a full reveal trailer, and the work done so far looks extremely impressive. Many of London's most iconic landmarks have been given a Fallout makeover - including Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral and even the BT Tower. Oh, and there's some extremely hammy commentary over the whole thing.

There are some really nice touches throughout the trailer: you can spot plenty of London buses, murky tube stations and even a classic London pub. I'm also a big fan of the Beefeater who's embraced a more Raider-inspired look. It feels like there are some nods to Britain's WWI and WWII past, with barrage balloons seen in the sky and soldiers camping out in trenches.

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Rescue operations seem to be rather popular across gaming communities at the moment, as along with Valheim's very own unit of body recovery specialists, a modder has brought Fallout 76's Responders faction to Fallout 4.

The Commonwealth Responders mod, made by TU3SD4Y, adds a total of 28 new quests, 27 new outfits, 30 buildable items and 52 buildable signs to Fallout 4 - all themed around the Responders faction, of course.

The story focuses on the last surviving member of the Commonwealth Responders, who needs your help to rebuild the Responders from the ground up. (The Responders is a volunteer relief organisation introduced in Fallout 76, if you need a refresh.) The mod even comes with a snazzy trailer, which you can watch below:

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Following Microsoft's $7.5bn acquisition of ZeniMax Media - the parent company of Bethesda, id Software, Arkane Studios, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks and more - back in September, many were eager to learn how competing platforms would be impacted. Now Xbox chief financial officer Tim Stuart has offered additional clues on Microsoft's future strategy, suggesting Bethesda's games will be "either first or better or best" on its platforms.

Speaking at the Jefferies Interactive Entertainment Virtual Conference (as transcribed by Seeking Alpha), Stuart offered assurances that Microsoft has no intention of "just pulling all of Bethesda content out of Sony or Nintendo or otherwise". Instead, he explained, "When we think about Bethesda, [we'll] continue to sell their games on the platforms that they exist today, and we'll determine what that looks over time and will change over time. I'm not making any announcements about exclusivity or something like that. But that model will change."

As to how that may change, Stuart suggested Microsoft would "want that content, in the long run, to be either first or better or best or pick your differentiated experience, on our platforms."

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Look, I know there's been some big news about Mass Effect recently, but you're going to have to wait a while for that remaster and new game anyway - so why not try out this Fallout 4 mod with voice acting by Commander Shepard in the meantime? Oh, and it's also pretty great if you're into your Fallout lore.

Made by a group of modders including members of YouTube channel ShoddyCast, Fallout: Brotherhood is an "interactive movie mod" for PC and Xbox telling the origin story of Fallout's famous Brotherhood of Steel faction. Released at the end of October, the mod stars voice actor Mark Meer (male Shepard in Mass Effect) as Roger Maxson, military man and first high elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. The story is set in pre-war America and explores the origins of the Brotherhood in the Mariposa Rebellion, and reveals the horrific results of the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) tests that prompted Maxson to rebel. There's even an introductory trailer to set the scene, which explains how the narrator acquired all his information.

Of course, with a description like that I couldn't just leave it there - so I downloaded the mod to have a poke around, and got in touch with some of the modding team behind the project.

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I still can't quite believe it's now been a decade since the release of Fallout: New Vegas, but yesterday Obsidian's much-beloved RPG turned 10, and Fallout fans (including ourselves) took a moment to look back and remember why the title was so great. One mod team decided to mark the occasion in particularly spectacular fashion by releasing a new trailer to show off progress so far. And I have to say, it really does look excellent.

Fallout 4: New Vegas, as the name may suggest, is a mod project seeking to remake Fallout: New Vegas in the Fallout 4 Creation Engine on PC. The team has been working on the mod for some time, having initially shared gameplay footage back in 2018, but the new trailer gives us a better idea of what the Mojave will look like when complete. There's also a lot of shooting. I think I spotted a bit of famous beginner area Quarry Junction in there - I can't wait to head in as soon as the mod becomes available.

Speaking of which, while it looks like significant progress has been made on the mod, there is still no set release date. "Progress is not linear, and we'd rather release the best possible F4NV, not a 'good enough' F4NV," the team explained in a FAQ section on Discord.

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Glitch speedruns can provide incredible insights into the way games are made - and more importantly, how they can be broken. Awesome Games Done Quick, the speedrunning charity event, is in full swing this week - and one of the most amusing runs I've seen so far is by the ever-entertaining speedrunner tomatoangus, best known for his Fallout anthology runs - including sex% speedruns. Yes, you read that correctly.

Having recently changed his name from tomatoanus to the more family-friendly tomatoangus ("the g is silent," he says), yesterday tomatoangus took the floor to show everyone his Fallout anthology speedrunning skills. Although he ran overtime, finishing at 2:16:21 instead of the 2:05:00 estimate (thanks in part to missing the Radaway right in front of him), the run was incredibly entertaining and informative - with tomatoangus sprinkling in fun facts to keep viewers engaged. This is a hole you'll want to go down.

One of the biggest revelations for me (aside from learning you can push Liam Neeson into dialogue triggers with a Nuka-Cola truck) was that Fallout New Vegas' end slides aren't actually a cutscene: instead, the player is placed in a small room facing a projector screen. After enabling player controls in the command console, tomatoangus walked behind this to display Ron the Narrator standing behind the slides, talking through the script. "You can kill him and drag him off, but then he just slides in from the other side - he doesn't want to leave," tomatoangus said. Now that is dedication to the job.

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Last year, I wrote one of my favourite articles of all time: a news piece on speedrunner tomatoanus, who'd set a particularly unusual record. He'd managed to set a "sex%" world record in the Fallout series - an unofficial speedrunning category involving having sex in each of the main games as fast as possible. (He's also done an equally impressive Fallout series world record speedrun).

In any case, that unusual username has become a bit of an issue when trying to register for charity speedrunning event Games Done Quick, with the organisers (understandably) taking issue with the "anus" in his username. I guess it wasn't wholesome enough for the family-friendly event. Or rather, too holesome.

According to tomatoanus' statement, GDQ had refused to list his name in three of the six previous events in which he had submitted runs. After contacting the organisers, a compromise was reached: tomatoanus could change his name to tomatoangus, and his submissions would be publicly listed.

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