Fallout 4 Coming Soon - Recent Info

Let's face it, ever since you completed Fallout 3 several times, you've been wanting another Fallout game. After a short while we heard about a new Fallout game coming out, except it wasn't Fallout 4. This game was Fallout: New Vegas. Personally I was disappointed that it had the same engine and graphics as Fallout 3. What bugged me the most was the diagonal running animation in 3rd person mode wasn't even changed. Although, I still bought the game, played it, enjoyed it and completed it several times.

Years passed and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had been released. Skyrim was the first time I experienced The Elder Scrolls series and I loved it. Bethesda finally fixed the running animation that I complained about earlier. While roaming the open-world of Skyrim, I thought to myself... If this game looks this great I wonder how great Fallout 4 is going to look.

I'm personally excited to hear some word of Fallout 4. We've all been waiting a long time for this and its finally coming out of the darkness and into the light. I've lost my excitement for video games as I've grown older, but this one definitely does it for me.

The below is compiled news, information and questions regarding Fallout 4.

War - War never changes. ~ TZ

What we Know So Far

Fallout 4 hasn't been announced yet but it's still one of the most anticipated games for PS4, Xbox One and PC. Speculation about the game began almost as soon as Fallout 3 launched in 2008. 

Unfortunately, a lot of the information floating around about the game is either bogus or unconfirmed. Let's recap what we do and don't know about the return of the post-apocalyptic RPG series.



Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda Game Studios, the development arm of Bethesda responsible for Fallout 3 and the Elder Scrolls series, may have started work on Fallout 4 as early as February 2012. They began hiring programmers during that month for "an unannounced game on future-generation consoles" as well as the PC. However, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was only three months old at that point so producing DLC and patches for that game remained the studio's focus.

The studio officially finished work on Skyrim's DLC a year ago. At the time, they said that it was time for them to focus on their next game, presumably Fallout 4.

"Parts of our team have also been in pre-production on our next major project, and that game is at the point where it requires the studio’s full attention to make it our biggest and best work yet," the company said.

Fallout 4 seems like the most likely bet for their next game. Skyrim's only a few years old and Elder Scrolls Online was just released by Bethesda's sister company ZeniMax Online Studios. It's a good time for the team at Bethesda to take a break from Elder Scrolls and work on something else. They've indicated in the past that they planned to revisit Fallout as well.

"This is not something we're going to do once and then go away and never do it again," Bethesda's vice president of PR Pete Hines told TVG in 2008. "When that will be or how long that will be god only knows, but we acquired it specifically because we wanted to own it and develop it and work on it like we do with The Elder Scrolls."



Release Date

It's hard to tell how far along the project is from the timeline mentioned above. We don't know how much progress Bethesda made before full-scale development began last year. It's possible that they had a small team planning the game well before early 2012.

Fallout 3's development gives reason for players to hope that the sequel's not far away. Bethesda started F3 in 2004 but couldn't concentrate on it until Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's DLC was finished in March 2007. They managed to release the game 19 months later.

Using the same timeline for Fallout 4 to predict a November 2014 release is tempting. Expecting Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 to conform to the same timetable seems unrealistic, though. The latter more than likely is being developed for PS4 and Xbox One, new consoles that Bethesda has less experience with. If they're planning to release the game on Xbox 360 and PS3 as well, the added workload would extend the wait even more. We may be looking at a 2015 launch at the earliest. 



Boston Setting In August 2012, a Reddit user suggested that Bethesda was scouting locations throughout Boston for Fallout 4. Cambridge-based university Massachusetts Institute of Technology was said to be a focus of their research.

Boston was never a setting for a Fallout game but was mentioned in Fallout 3 side quests. In the alternate history of the series, Massachusetts reformed as the Commonwealth in the wake of the nuclear war. MIT came to be known as the Institute, an organization that specialized in the creation of androids. Another faction of note in the Commonwealth is the Railroad, a group dedicated to helping these androids.

The point is, Bethesda went to some length to flesh out this region's lore in F3. It seems plausible that they were just laying the groundwork for using the Commonwealth as the central setting for Fallout 4.

The Boston rumor was supported by leaked casting documents for Fallout 4. The documents mention missions involving both the Commonwealth and the Institute. It seems unlikely that Bethesda would go through the trouble of recording dialogue about these factions if they weren't already certain that the game would take place in Boston.



Three Dog

One of the radio stations in Fallout 3 was run by disc jockey Three Dog. In early 2013, Three Dog voice actor Erik Todd Dellums suggested that he would reprise his role in Fallout 4.

"I let [Bethesda] know that fans were clamoring, trying to figure out if there's any chance that Three Dog would be back sometime," Dellums said in an interview. "And, you know, they let it slip that it looks like Three Dog will. And they said that, 'Well, maybe you could tell your fans.'"

It's surprising, though not impossible, that Three Dog would relocate from the Washington D.C. area to Boston. Travel isn't exactly easy in the post-apocalyptic United States. Then again, maybe the constant violence of the Capital Wasteland was enough to convince him to make the trip.

The leaked casting documents mentioned earlier discuss a disc jockey named Travis Miles. That doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be a different radio station manned by Three Dog, though. Fallout 3 arguably had too few music options so Bethesda may try to correct that flaw in Fallout 4 by offering players several stations to choose from.



Ron Perlman

Every chapter in the main Fallout series started with a monologue from Ron Perlman, the Pacific Rim and Sons of Anarchy actor. However, that long-standing tradition may change in Fallout 4. Those leaked documents suggested that the player character will speak the opening, rather than Perlman's unknown narrator.

Perlman seemed to confirm that speculation in a Reddit Ask Me Anything from earlier this month.

"Don't have any video games on the horizon right now," Perlman said during the AmA.

It could be that Perlman already recorded his dialogue so he's simply skirting around the truth. He may have to stay tight-lipped about Fallout 4 due to a non-disclosure agreement. However, it seems equally likely that Fallout 4 won't be featuring his gravelly voice. 


 
The Player Character

Those casting documents mentioned earlier state that the Fallout 4 player character will wake up from a cryogenic sleep chamber at the outset of the game. His opening monologue implies that he was asleep since before the war began.

"We now stand on the brink of total war - and I am afraid. For myself, for my wife, for my infant son," the hero says in the monologue. "Because if my time in the Army taught me one thing, it’s that war - war never changes."

It may be that the player character volunteered to go into this sleep. Maybe the United States government put a select group of personnel in cryo sleep in hopes that they would survive the apocalypse. It would be their duty to then restore order in the United States after they woke up. Or maybe the cryo sleep wasn't so carefully planned.

Cryogenic sleep, like amnesia is a convenient narrative device. It gives the hero an excuse for knowing as little about the outside world as the player. It's always unrealistic how NPC's in role-playing games prattle on about their life story and the local history. It makes a little more sense, though, when they're talking to someone who just woke up in a cryo tube after decades of sleep.

Bethesda hires Guillermo del Toro's production company to create Fallout 4 trailer

Fallout 4 E3 reveal likely as unannounced game appears on CG artist's profile. 

By VideoGamer.com Staff Follow @VideoGamerCom
11th May, 2015 - 11:17am 



Bethesda has hired Guillermo del Toro's production company to create a cinematic trailer for its unannounced RPG Fallout 4, according to the LinkedIn profile of a 3D artist contracted to work on it.



The artist's CV (pictured above) states that he was hired by California-based Mirada Studios between December 2014-March 2015 to create a "Fallout 4 cinematic trailer", although no further details are provided. His previous work includes contributions to last year's Far Cry 4 trailer, The Elder Scrolls and Forza Motorsport.

Bethesda has yet to formally announce Fallout 4, but rumours persist that the game may be revealed during the publisher's E3 press conference on Sunday, June 14.

A 20-30 minute gameplay demo is also rumoured to be being prepared for a behind-closed-doors presentation at the show.

VideoGamer.com has reached out to a Bethesda representative for comment and is awaiting a response.

WHO ARE MIRADA STUDIOS?

Co-founded by Hollywood quartet Guillermo del Toro, Matthew Cullen, Javier Jiminez and Guillermo Navarro in late 2010, Mirada Studios describes itself as "a studio designed for storytellers" that offers its creative services to a variety of major clients, including Disney, Nike and Amazon.

Judging by its portfolio, the studio has previously helped create Walt Disney World's 'Be Our Guest' advert, worked on the music video for Katy Perry's 'Dark Horse' and developed the prologue to 2013's Pacific Rim.

It also has some experience in video games, having worked on an advert for Nintendo's Mario Kart 8.
DOES THIS MEAN GUILLERMO DEL TORO IS DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN FALLOUT 4?

Not necessarily. While del Toro helped co-found Mirada, the studio employs a number of artists to help create content for film, TV, advertising and other forms of media.
WILL FALLOUT 4 BE AT E3?

While a reveal has yet to be confirmed, a rumour posted last week suggests that Bethesda may have plans to reveal a 20-30 minute demo of Fallout 4 during its E3 press conference on June 14. It's the first time Bethesda has chosen to host its own E3 press conference, too, suggesting it may have plenty to show at this year's show.

Bethesda has also used previous E3s to offer a first look at earlier Fallout titles. The first gameplay demo of Fallout 3 was revealed during E3 2008, three months before its October 2008 release. Then, two years later, it released a gameplay reveal trailer for follow-up Fallout: New Vegas during E3 2010.

As well as Fallout 4, Bethesda is likely to present the first global look at id Software's upcoming Doom game during the event, too.

FAQ

What is Fallout 4?

Fallout 4 will likely be a futuristic post-apocalyptic action-RPG set in an alternate universe based on 50s pulp sci-fi, as if the world had stopped in the optimistic 50s and found itself on a dystopian post-apocalyptic reality. It is expected to be a sequel to the games Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout 3.
Is it in production?

Fallout 4 is speculated to be the game Bethesda has had in pre-production since at least August 2010.[1] However no annoucement has been made as to any product being developed in the studio.
But will there be one?

Bethesda has previously indicated that they are likely to create more Fallout titles.

Bethesda's Pete Hines said: "The whole reason we went out and acquired the license and that we now own Fallout is that we clearly intended to make more than one." He also added: "This is not something we're going to do once and then go away and never do it again. When that will be or how long that will be God only knows, but we acquired it specifically because we wanted to own it and develop it and work on it like we do with The Elder Scrolls."[2]

Fallout memorabilia has also been made available on the Bethesda store. 

Will it be a MMORPG?

As no game has been announced, we simply cannot say.

Interplay licensed the rights to a Fallout MMORPG from Bethesda in 2007 and is currently developing it under the codename Project V13. Bethesda recently moved to rescind the Fallout MMORPG license, claiming that Interplay is in breach of the licensing agreement. Interplay disputes these claims. As of January, 2012, Bethesda settled the case with Interplay relinqushing any claim for 2 million.

It is however unlikely that Bethesda Softworks would develop a Fallout MMO. Zenimax Media (the parent to Bethesda Softworks) own several MMORPG studios that would be more suited to such a role.

For more details, see: Fallout Online FAQ. 

Is it the same as Fallout: New Vegas?

Fallout: New Vegas was a separate project developed by Obsidian Entertainment. For more information, see: Fallout: New Vegas FAQ. 

Who will be making and publishing Fallout 4?

No game has been announced, but we expect that Fallout 4 would be developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.[3]
What will Fallout 4 be rated?

Fallout 4 has not been announced yet, but the game will likely have an M rating, as with previous Fallout games. This is due to the general mature themes in the Fallout universe, as well as the gore that is so prevalent throughout Fallout.
When is it going to be released?

No development has been announced yet. However with Bethesda having focused on releasing Dishonored in October 2012, no games slated for a Christmas 2013 release, we do not expect an announcement (much less release) for some time.
Is it made by people who made previous Fallouts?

We expect it will be developed by the same team who made Fallout 3, from Bethesda Game Studios. Interplay and Black Isle, the Fallout and Fallout 2 developers, were not involved in the making of Fallout 3. 

Who is developing Fallout 4?

The exact list of developers is unknown, although they'll likely be mostly the same as the Fallout 3 developers. 

Will any characters from previous Fallouts appear?

Possibly. Erik Todd Dellums, the voice of Three Dog, teased in January 2013 that his voice, and potentially the character, may appear in a future title.[4]

Did Bethesda really invite fan suggestions in mid 2013 for Fallout 4?

No.

For years the Bethesda Forums have maintained an "Official" suggestion thread for fan ideas. The purpose of this thread is not to solicit fan ideas, but organize those that are coming in anyway.