New Vegas writer says Bethesda “lectured” him over 30 FPS promise in Fallout: New Vegas

Chris Avellone is a well-known and beloved figure to many who follow the Fallout universe. He served as the senior writer and lead designer for Fallout: New Vegas and its fourDLCs, which were released to critical acclaim in 2010. He recently shared an interesting story about how Bethesda responded when he promised that the game would run at 30 FPS.

In an interview with TKs-Mantis on YouTube, he recalled a moment when Bethesda started lecturing him over the 30 FPS comment made during a pre-launch interview for Fallout: New Vegas. 

Avellone sat down for an interview about the Gamebryo engine, and someone asked him, “Hey, is New Vegas going to run at 30 frames per second?”

Avellone recalled the moment and said, “In my mind, it’s inexcusable that a game would not run at 30 frames per second, so I said, ‘Yes, it will.’ And to my surprise, I’m in this Bethesda meeting, and this tech director starts lecturing me, saying, ‘You shouldn’t have said that.’”

He was lectured and scolded by the tech director, but internally, he was fuming. He recalled the incident and said, “And I’m sitting there taking it, and I’m thinking, in the back of my head, ‘Why do you have a bleeping engine that can’t run 30 frames per second, and then call that your claim to fame, and you’re the director of technology?’”

“It was so offensive to me. I sat there, and I smiled and took it, but overall, that in itself was one fundamental flaw of the technology there.”

For context, the Gamebryo engine was already past its prime, even by 2010 standards. Players regularly complained about choppy frame rates, crashes, bugs, and general instability from the get-go. The issue is still prevalent enough that third-party mods are required to ensure Fallout: New Vegas runs smoothly, even in 2026.

Avellone further explained that he had heard from programmers at Bethesda discussing the engine and saying it had “all sorts of messes under the hood.”

Bethesda took the post-launch criticism seriously and finally ditched the Gamebryo engine after New Vegas’s release, adopting the Creation Engine for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in 2011.