It’s extremely clickbaity.
He wasn’t working on it, and was invited to play-test what they had. He said he thought it would take 18 months to finish when they asked him, which is what the person who asked him also thought, and anything longer than 6 months ment it would be cancelled.
It’s like when someone asks you if the soup they are making is too salty, you say yes, and they pour it down the drain. You’re not the person who threw it away.
Fallout 3 and 4 ended up being really great games after Bethesda got ahold of the IP. Can’t say the next one will be that way considering Microsoft got their hands on the studio reins.
I think the main criticism was not that they are bad, but that they are a different genre from 1-2.
I liked 3 and 4, but I like 1-2 as well, with Wasteland 3 abd ATOM being great games to scratch that itch in modern times.