There’s a ton of hype around Fallout 4, and the vast majority of it is much deserved. Bethesda has made it a habit to create spectacular gaming experiences in the role-playing space with The Elder Scrolls as well as with shooters and action games such as Doom and Dishonored, respectively.
With Fallout 4 out in just a few days, we can’t help but wonder if now is the right time to release the game. The Fallout Anthology collection was made available barely more than a month ago, and that set has enough gaming in it to last even a seasoned gamer a few months.
By no means should Fallout 4 have waited another year, but a Spring release time frame may have been a more suitable release window for the game for a number of reasons.
Gamers have no shortage of games to play this holiday season. Not even including yearly releases like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed, there’s Halo 5: Guardians, Ubisoft’s reboot of the Rainbow Six series with Siege, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Just Cause 3, and perhaps the biggest franchise on the planet getting its first real game in a while: Star Wars Battlefront.
Fallout is not the type of game to get lost in the mud of those other games. In fact, it’d be more than a little concerning if it isn’t among the top two or three titles of the year, if not the game of the year (which it will be for a huge number of gamers and critics alike).
The March release window for games has a lot to be said for it, however. There are still some heavy-hitters landing next Spring, most notably Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Far Cry Primal, among a few others like The Division and Hitman, but it isn’t the onslaught of games we’re facing this holiday, nor are any of them massive open worlds directly competing with Fallout‘s structure.
With the huge cachet that Fallout has, the company would likely see a lot more of its Anthology under Christmas trees this year, spurring further sales of its previous titles and warming people up for a Spring release of its latest game.
Hell, the game could even release in early-February, competing almost exclusively with XCOM 2 and Battleborn, neither of which should take any sales away from Bethesda.
Of course, there’s also something to be said for competing against the best during the holiday season just to come out on top anyway. But we can’t help but think there was something left on the table.