With Bethesda having confirmed that Fallout 5 is now in preproduction, Polygon's writers have put together a wishlist of changes they would like to see made to the long-running post-apocalyptic RPG series. The piece reflects widespread fan speculation about the next mainline instalment following Fallout 4 and the more recent success of the Fallout TV adaptation, and touches on storytelling, dialogue, character progression and setting.

Among the suggestions are making the protagonist silent again rather than fully voiced as in Fallout 4, moving the setting beyond America to explore other nuclear-devastated regions of the world, and developing a less derivative plot with more nuanced, morally grey themes. The writers also call for more varied dialogue options beyond the four-response format used previously, and an overhauled skill and perk system that ties character development more logically to how the player actually plays, drawing comparisons to The Elder Scrolls and Obsidian's The Outer Worlds games.