Chris Avellone, senior New Vegas writer, designer of Fallout 2, and author of the Fallout Bible, has recently addressed the speculation, saying that he doesn’t believe Bethesda actually detests the original Fallout games.
In his opinion, the studio doesn’t fully understand the franchise’s roots and likely doesn’t particularly care to, since they own the IP and want to shape it however they see fit. Avellone went on to describe Bethesda’s attempts at Fallout as “colorful, shallow theme parks” – with some exceptions like the Far Harbor, Point Lookout, and The Pitt DLCs – while acknowledging that some people do enjoy theme parks.
“As for me, I don’t hate Bethesda, there are things they do well (open world exploration), and there are things they do badly (telling linear stories in open world games and their inability to understand how to use the Speech skill),” the writer concluded.