Fallout 4

It hasn't been announced yet, but Bethesda have said that they obtained the Fallout IP with the intent of releasing several games and with the reception that Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas have received, it seems highly unlikely that they'd give up on that idea now. It's been a couple of years since New Vegas came out and of course The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim came out last year, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched to suggest that Fallout 4 is coming in the not too distant future, perhaps next year.

What prompts me to bring it up is this article over on GameSpot, which discusses rumours that Fallout 4 will be set in Boston:

If a new rumor proves accurate, Bethesda's next Fallout game will be set in Boston. A Reddit user going by "fallout4boston" claims the unannounced Fallout 4 will be set in the Massachusetts capital city.

This tipster says Bethesda has been "scoping out and researching" the city, and suggests the developer has a "strong connection" to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a prestigious research university near Boston. The Reddit user "may or may not be an MIT employee," according to the post.

According to the Fallout Wikia page, "The Commonwealth" was referenced in 2008's Fallout 3. Four real-world states in the US categorize themselves as Commonwealths: Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts. Bethesda lead designer Emil Pagliarulo told 1UP in 2009 that the Commonwealth reference in Fallout 3 was in fact speaking about Massachusetts, not any of the other three states.

Additionally, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas included mentions of a mysterious "Institute," which is located in The Commonwealth. This could potentially be related to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology referenced by the Reddit user.

At the very least, it seems like a good guess. It fits with fleeting references in previous games that could obviously be expanded upon, keeping it on the east coast helps with it being a direct sequel to Fallout 3 and it maintains some separation from the west coast games of Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas (though they're obviously still in the same canon), assuming they don't want to retcon a few things from Fallout 3 that differed a little from the first two games.

Having spent hours upon hours with Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, I'm definitely keen for the series to continue and am looking forward to a new game being announced soon. My guess is that even if they do disregard a few things from the west coast games and further establish a few different ideas about the Fallout universe in games set on the east coast, they'll take a few ideas and innovations that Obsidian made use of in New Vegas, such as better storyline branching, the companion well, signature weapon attacks and so on. It'll also presumably use the same tech as Skyrim.

If the Boston rumours are completely wide of the mark, then I'd suggest Chicago as a possibility. They've used it before but not in any of the fully canonical games, it's been established there's an Enclave base there which would work out well given their role as antagonists in Fallout 3. It's not east coast obviously, but instead sits fairly comfortably between the east coast and west coast settings, so it could feasibly borrow from both. If they do want to keep it on the east coast, New York seems like a good setting as well.

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Pretty much.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas really took so much of my free time. And even now, I would re-play those and still enjoy. I'm really looking forward to this.

I hope they make an official announcement about it soon. To be honest, I've always been more of an Elder Scrolls fan but Skyrim was a little disappointing to me. So I'm hoping Fallout 4 can be that game that I am able to spend many hours on and not get bored.

Another tease courtesy of Three Dog's voice actor, Erik Todd Dellums.

"To all my #Fallout3 and #ThreeDog fans: There may be more of the Dog coming! Fingers crossed!," Dellums wrote, noting he was given permission to make the announcement.

There it goes.

In other Fallout related news: Fallout TV show in the works?

Bethesda Softworks may be developing a Fallout-branded television show. A new trademark application from the company (spotted by The Vault) is listed as an "ongoing television program set in a post-nuclear apocalyptic world."

Bethesda has not made any such announcements and a representative from the company was not immediately available to comment.

Interesting, would probably be worth checking out if it ever comes to fruition. Still looking forward to some sort of announcement regarding Fallout 4 though.

I hope it uses "better tech" than skyrim since it wasn't optimized upon release and it didn't look amazing until the modders went to town on it.

I haven't played Skyrim so I wasn't aware of that. I'm guessing it'll use the same engine since they retired Gamebryo, so hopefully they'll have worked out some of those issues in the couple of years since.

So, nothing new on the Fallout 4 front for the moment. However, here's an interesting piece on a possible follow-up to Fallout: New Vegas.

During a DICE chat that lasted innumerable moons, months, seasons, and centuries, Urquhart and I briefly touched on his studio’s return to its old techno-magically irradiated Black Isle haunt. “Oh, we’d love to do Fallout: New Vegas 2,” he enthused. “It would be awesome.” But how would that work? And is Bethesda on board with the idea? Here’s what Urquhart had to say.

“If I think of going from Fallout 1 to Fallout 2, we tried to associate the two areas somewhat closely,” he explained to RPS. “It wasn’t just ‘Oh, we’re gonna do this 2,000 miles from here.’ So I think if we were to do Fallout: New Vegas 2 – or just a new Fallout – we would probably separate it from what the internal team at Bethesda’s doing. We’d keep it on the West Coast, because we’re West Coast people. They’re East Coast, so it makes sense.”

“And we need an interesting confined area. So I mean, it could be LA. Fallout LA. That could be interesting. It’d probably be The Boneyard, which is from Fallout 1. It could be very different. It could be almost a Walking Dead meets Fallout-like thing because of all the radiation.”

“We talk to Bethesda all the time,” he said. “And I think the challenge here doesn’t just apply to Bethesda specifically, but to a lot of publishers in general. But basically, what does all the [current] console crap mean? The challenge in this period of time has been, you have this console transition, and it’s strange that they’re still not announced. But that always creates a disruption in the industry. And now you mix in [the emergence of] mobile and F2P stuff, and it’s left a lot of people reeling.”

“So that’s a lot of the conversation we’ve had with publishers. ‘OK, how do we get back to normal – whatever normal is going to be.’ That’s just the process right now.”

Meanwhile, I also managed to pull Bethesda’s Todd Howard aside and get his two cents, which basically amounted to a reiteration of Urquhart’s sentiment. Nothing’s set in stone, but New Vegas was great, and having another go at it certainly makes an awful lot of sense.

Nothing to get too excited about yet, but I definitely like the sound of that, both the prospect of Obsidian getting to develop a follow-up to New Vegas and the idea that was briefly described. I think that'd be great for the series, having Bethesda develop the numbered games and continue the East Coast story, while letting Obsidian continue to develop the West Coast-based games and simply sharing their tech and publishing them. Still hoping we get some news on a new game soon.

PC Gamer: What we want from Fallout 4

No disagreement here.

Speaking of wishlists:

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Bethesda downplays Fallout news

Gamers gearing up for news about the next Fallout game may want to get comfortable.

Speaking with Polygon, Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines said the studio understands fans are eager for a new entry in the series, but cautioned that expecting news soon is "unrealistic."

"I mean [fans] have been clamoring for a Fallout game for a long time now. What people need to understand--whether it is Bethesda Game Studios, Arkane, or anybody--expecting information like that in any short period of time after they moved off one project to the other is really unrealistic," Hines said.

Hines explained that Bethesda has no plans to make any of its franchises annual releases, but at the same time, won't make fans wait a decade for the next entry in a series.

good for them. they're not whoring themselves out like the assassin's creed series in a money grab

I guess, though I am eager to see a new Fallout game (as my previous posts clearly indicate). It's been almost five years since Fallout 3 and almost three since New Vegas, so it feels like it's due. With all the DLC and replay value it has been enough to tide one over until the next game, but I was still hoping to hear something coming out of E3.

Just for fun, a rumoured teaser:
http://thesurvivor2299.com/

However, it could well be a fan hoax:
http://ign.com/articles/2013/11/14/is-t ... t-4-teaser

And now, this:
http://ign.com/articles/2013/11/18/beth ... -in-europe

Following the discovery of what many believe to be a Fallout 4 teaser site, Fallout publisher Bethesda Softworks has trademarked the game in Europe.

The Fallout 4 registration was discovered on the website of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Markets, which is the official trademark office of the European Union.

http://thesurvivor2299.com/

Pretty much the moniker of the main protagonist in the year 2299.

The Survivor, definitely in line with The Lone Wanderer and The Courier. 2299 would place the game 22 years after the events of Fallout 3 and 18 years after the events of Fallout: New Vegas, which seems about right for a sequel looking back at the previous games.

Pretty stocked about this. If Fallout 3 and NV were remade using the Skyrim engine, I would literally spend every waking hour on them, so Fallout 4 certainly sounds promising to me already.

I actually picked up Skyrim for a few bucks on sale through GMG a little while back, so I'll finally have to give that a shot and see the newer engine for myself.

If it's on PC, 'drew: mod it up. When you level up on the vanilla game, there's no more challenge.

Reddit says this stuff is happening
http://i.imgur.com/Ecw1VOV.png

For those who are seeing "ZL QRNE FVFGRE. V'Z URNQVAT GB GUR VAFGVGHGR. TBQ XABJF JUNG UNCCRARQ GB GUVF CYNPR ABJ. GUVF BYQ ONFGNEQ JVYY URYC HF. UR ZHFG URYC HF. --0321--" It is coded using ROT13 and translates as: "MY DEAR SISTER. I'M HEADING TO THE INSTITUTE. GOD KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS PLACE NOW. THIS OLD BASTARD WILL HELP US. HE MUST HELP US. --0321--"

Please, if it can't take place in California/Nevada like the first two, let the next one take place in and around the Institute.
The Institute...That's the place where the security captain in Rivet City came from right? And the old fuckface bastard and his android?

I've been itching to see what that was all about since I first got Fallout 3. Fuck yes.

Yup. The Institute = Massachusetts Institute of Technology post-apocalypse.

and most likely Boston, yeah? now that would be awesome.

"Wuah, wuah nevah changes"

"When 'da bambs fell, we was wicked pissed."

'Cause, in Vault 101: ain't nobody eveah enteah, and ain't nobody eveah friggin' leaves.

Seems to gel with the rumours that were floating around last year.