Ranking All Games Published By Bethesda Softworks From Worst To Best

After rebooting the Fallout franchise, Bethesda handed over reins to another premier western RPG maker (now also a fellow Xbox first-party studio), Obsidian Entertainment, to create a follow-up using their engine and mechanics.

It was an interesting choice due to this studio being made up of several alumni that worked on the original Fallout titles, allowing this to be an authentic and deeper experience compared to Fallout 3.

Starting off in Noir-ish territory with your protagonist betrayed, shot, and left for dead with amnesia, the campaign is a cracking twisty tale, that's refreshingly bereft of the 'save of the world' cliches and just focuses on immersing the player into a layered, gritty sci-fi world.

Obsidian also brought deeper faction and NPC interaction. You are free to fight or side with any town or group in the world, but your actions, good or bad, will be remembered and have real consequences in ways that make the world feel more alive over the third.

So why does Vegas sit lower on the list? While it builds and deepens on the third installment, it does so by standing on the podium Bethesda has painstakingly already built, and Obsidian wasn't given the freedom to evolve things, only make a fantastic game from what they were given.

Regardless, Obsidian has left an incredibly deep mark on the franchise, and one that has yet to be surpassed by the following games.

Now that they are all in the Xbox family... can we get a New Vegas 2 already?