Fallout 4 Could be Bethesda's Biggest Hit, Says Pete Hines

During the course of an interview with the folks at MCV UK, Bethesda's VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines has stated that he's confident Fallout 4 might be the company's biggest hit yet. The titles developed by Bethesda Game Studios have been on an upward trajectory sales-wise, but even so, selling more than Skyrim's impressive 20 million copies would be a momentous occasion for both the company and the RPG genre:

For the next 12 months, Fallout 4 is unquestionably the biggest game in Bethesda's arsenal.

2008's Fallout 3 was a massive sales success, while 2011's Elder Scrolls: Skyrim a game made by the same studio is the biggest RPG of all time, smashing even Bethesda's most optimistic expectations.

(I think this can top Skyrim,) Hines says confidently. (It could be our biggest release ever. But we will see. It is part of my job to build the megaphone that we hold up to the game, and the game decides how loud it goes. Just how big it is going to be is hard to say. Skyrim was a massively big deal.)

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The hunger for a new Fallout was evident at E3 when Bethesda unveiled and launched Fallout Shelter, an iOS game that immediately shot to the top of the charts and became the highest-grossing title of the week.

Its success was such that mobile experts even suggested Fallout Shelter might prove more lucrative than Fallout 4.

(No way,) retorts Hines. (Not even close.) But he adds that Shelter remains a big part of Bethesda's plans for the next 12 months.


Hines also discussed the publisher's plans at lengths and revealed his hopes for a more consistent release schedule in the future, now that the various studios Bethesda acquired are fully integrated and have hit their stride development-wise. If you're interested in the work Bethesda has been doing (or at least, in their RPG IPs), it's certainly worth a read.