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■ Fallout
Fallout is a 1997 role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay Productions, set in a mid-22nd century post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic world, decades after a global nuclear war led by the United States and China. Fallout’s protagonist, the Vault Dweller, inhabits an underground nuclear shelter.

New Fallout Game

With the recent Xbox Reset of laying off 3,200 employees, Xbox have whipped Obsidian Studios to produce a new Fallout video game!

The studio recently had to lay off 25% of its staff, so they had to cancel Avowed II, and now needs to focus on that next Fallout game, under the leadership of studio design director Josh Sawyer.

As a longtime Fallout fan, I welcome this news (courtesy of Bloomberg).

I feel with the 30th Anniversary coming up, that might be a great time to release the new game. However, reality I feel like they might announce the game on the 30th Anniversary and then take another five years to develop the game.

Even though a new Fallout game is just “common sense”, we have to look at Bethesda, who stated that they won’t start working on Fallout until 2030, due to their commitment to Elder Scrolls VI (aka Skyrim II). As much as I would love another Skyrim, I feel that based on Fallout’s popularity with the Amazon Prime’s Fallout TV Show, that they need to strike while the iron’s hot. I don’t know if anyone is clamoring for a new Skyrim game.

Let’s face it, Bethesda isn’t good at the moment. Their Starfield game is a flop. Yes, I bought it! It sucks.

Still, hearing that Obsidian is working on the next Fallout game is very exciting. Very excited, indeed.

McFarlane Fallout

When McFarlane Toys announced a series of Fallout Action Figures for Fallout Day 2025, I confessed “it’s going to be expensive to try and collect all these figures.” I also added that I won’t buy them if they are $40, and while the price disclosed later as $35, that was still too expensive for me. The only two figures I purchased was the Power Armor Elite and Lucy Elite, both retailed for $60 each. That’s way too expensive for toys.

I understand where McFarlane is coming from. He has to make or at least break even on these figures. With Trump’s tariffs on goods from China, McFarlane’s cost went up 30%, so he has to “pass those savings” to the consumers, the toy collectors. In the old days, if these figures came in at $20, I would have probably collected the entire line.

In my review of Lucy, I said, “Oh boy, did I regret it. This is not a $42 figure, let alone the original $60 asking price.” I thought I got ripped off for $42, it certainly didn’t feel like it was a $42 figure at all.

Recently, there was a clearance on Fallout toys they couldn’t sell on Amazon. McFarlane sold out all the single Fallout figures, except for Steph Harper. Nobody wanted this figure. The price’s gone up to $17, but I paid $11 for it.

I have compared the Lucy and Steph figures – they are exactly 100% the same body, from that unsightly butt to the same pants folds. The only difference are the faces and hair. There may be some more paint on Lucy, but I swear, you cannot tell the difference, if you took off the faces and hair. They are the same.

What this means is that you can basically now have two Lucy figures, although one of them will have blond hair. I prefer the Lucy face, although it does look uncanny with the blond hair. For $11, yeah, it is very cool to have in my collection.