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Go ahead and type “Fallout 4” in to a search engine. What will you find? Conjecture, rumor, anger, sadness, joy, legal issues, birth, death… all the ingredients for a great drama. I was trying to sift through all of this material to deliver a story based squarely on facts. Then I realized there are very little facts. So what do I do? I promised a feature, and I basically have no facts. That hasn’t stopped millions of journalists before me, so I will tell you what I am going to do: I am going to use this feature as a platform to beg Bethesda for a new Fallout.
OH MIGHTY BETHESDA, LORD OF ELDER AND WOLF, HEAR MY PLEA! PLEASE MAKE ANOTHER FALLOUT GAME AND DON’T MAKE IT A *#%ING MMO! UH… THANKS!
Did it work? No? Well I guess I will just report some of the more prominent and conceivable rumors.
Rumor: There is going to be a Fallout 4.
Here is the quote that numerous outlets, including Wikipedia and countless other gaming sites, are attributing to Pete Hines, VP of Marketing for Bethesda: “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. 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.” So there you go. That is the main reason people believe there will be another Fallout. I subscribe to the notion that they pretty much have to make another one. There is definitely room in the universe for more, and there is definitely a market for one of the most successful gaming franchises in recent memory. Bethesda are you a business? Do you like money? Then get it done.
Rumor: Fallout 4 will take place in a post-apocalyptic version of Boston.
This one is pretty believable. It stemmed from a Reddit post by an anonymous user here. There were also references to “The Commonwealth” and “The Institute” in a Fallout 3 side quest, as covered by IGN here. Boston makes a lot of sense. Its history and landmarks pretty much write some quests for themselves. If androids are in fact the main antagonists, maybe you dress up like a raider and dump all of the fuel the androids need in the harbor. We could call the quest “The Boston Bleed Party” or something like that. As with the very notion that the project exists, Bethesda has no official comment on any possible location.
Rumor: It will be an MMO.
I don’t even want to talk about it. I mean, would I play it? Sure. Is Elder Scrolls Online going to be sweet? Of course it is. But soon there will be no amazing single player franchises left. Anyway, there was a Fallout MMO in production, but Bethesda sued to have it squashed. Once again, no actual statements from the parties involved can be found online, but Kotaku.com reports the details here and it all seems to check out. Basically Interplay, who created the franchise, had to raise some money and start development in a timely manner in order to keep the project. They didn’t, so Bethesda sued to own all rights to the franchise, paid Interplay some money, and now the game is gone. Could Bethesda start up a new one? Certainly. Should they? Eh…
So now that I have entertained some conjecture about a possible Fallout sequel, let’s get to the only fact that I could gather from Bethesda’s website.
Fact: Bethesda and its sister companies are too busy for Fallout right now.
I mean, just look at the site. Dishonored has a Game of the Year edition and more DLC coming out, they have a lot of bugs to work out in ESO, and holy crap look at that sweet Wolfenstein sequel. And let’s not forget this thing…
Bethesda and the empire it belongs to are huge. They could spend $50 million on Bricklayer: Mason of Doom or some other such nonsense, not make a penny, and still exist as a company. A lot of places couldn’t do this, and it speaks to their strength. However as such, they don’t have to bend to outside pressure or nerd rages. They will make the game when they are ready. Or they won’t. It isn’t like they are sending out bad games in the meantime, so maybe we should cut them a little slack.
This article was featured on Corrupted Cartridge’s website. The original can be found here.