What's Coming From Stern Pinball in 2026?

Welcome to Rumor Friday post number two. Let's see, what else I have heard lately? How about something about the Big Dog in the pinball industry, Stern.

I'm 99% sure that for the rest of 2025 we are getting a John Borg Star Wars themed cornerstone game and The Walking Dead Remastered, but what is Stern bringing us in 2026? It seems pretty widely accepted that Stern's first 2026 cornerstone game will be based upon the monster fighting anime / trading card / video game Pokémon. The initial rumors about Pokémon were that it was going to be designed by Jack Danger, however more recently I have heard that is not the case and that it will be a Keith Elwin game.

Until recently, beyond that I was pretty stumped as to what else Stern will build in 2026. However I have been hearing talk again lately about a rumored title that I mentioned in an article here back in December of 2024...the popular video game / Amazon Prime series Fallout.

I never really played the video games, other than the first one, but the Fallout television series was really good - and popular with over 100 Million views Worldwide. Season 2 of Fallout is scheduled to release on Prime in December of 2025 and a third Season is in the works, so it's a very relevant IP.

Fallout pinball is supposedly very much in the works at Stern right now. Beyond that I don't know much about it as far as the designer, timing, etc. If I had to guess about the designer at this point, I'd probably go with Brian Eddy, but again that's just an educated guess. I will keep my ear to the ground and see what else I can find out.

Also in regards to Stern, I recently heard again that a Boutique-esque machine with a smaller run of 750 units or less is still coming from them. I doubt that smaller run game would be Fallout though, which is a pretty big IP.

Below is a link to the 2024 article that I mentioned earlier. For those keeping score at home, the article correctly predicted Stern's Dungeons & Dragons and King Kong and most likely the upcoming Star Wars pin.

If you've heard any interesting pinball or arcade rumors that you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them. Reach out to me at knapparcade@gmail.com.

Time for the disclaimer…these are rumors. They’re fun to talk about. Please take them in that spirit. They are not always 100% correct. I think that I have more hits than misses, but inevitably some will be wrong - either because they’re just flat out wrong or they were about a game that was actually in the pipeline that was cancelled.

The Latest Rumors About Stern Pinball…

https://www.knapparcade.org/post/rumors