Last week, the site http://thesurvivor2299.com/ made gaming news when after curious fans decoded the Morse code audio signal into a date: 12-22-13. This data has been further corroborated by a countdown timer that came up later in the week, which was of this writing still has just over 22 days, 18 hours left to go.
Further investigation revealed that the site’s code contains references to Fallout 4, the long-anticipated “true” follow-up to 2008’s Fallout 3, which won numerous Game of the Year awards. Over the course of today, more evidence has come to light regarding the domain registration, which bears the markers of being owned by ZeniMax Media. Finally, the Vault-Tec logo has appeared on the site under the timer.
The next entry in the franchise was Fallout: New Vegas, which most “vault dwellers” either loved or loathed for its changes in formula. That title’s biggest legacy is probably the controversy after news broke that development studio Obsidian Entertainment was denied bonuses and additional funding, which eventually led to layoffs and apparently affected the development of the game’s disappointing dlc. Apparently the game fell within tenths of a point short of the aggregate review scores – on sites such as Metacritic and GameRankings – that parent company ZeniMax had expected.
Bethesda Softworks, the developer responsible for Fallout 3, spent the intervening years working on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and its subsequent DLC; when the company announced that they were done with new content for that title, the general assumption was that their attention would turn to Fallout. In fact, earlier today sources confirmed that the studio has just filed for trademark of “Fallout 4” in Europe.
The last significant Fallout mention came in the form of a tweet from Erik Todd Dellums on January 8: “To all my #Fallout3 and #ThreeDog fans: There may be more of the Dog coming! Fingers crossed!” Three Dog was the radio host of Galaxy News Radio in Fallout 3, and remains a fan-favorite from the series.
As to the site’s authenticity, many of us were cruelly mislead this time last year by a fan-made site with similar implications to Prey 2. It’s worth mentioning that the trademark filing would be a stretch to call coincidence; Fallout 3 takes place in 2277, putting this in the correct time-frame; and finally “The Survivor” has the ring of the pseudonyms given to each numerical Fallout’s main character: the Vault Dweller, Chosen One, and Lone Wanderer, respectively.
Here’s everything the Fallout wiki The Vault has collected on the site: http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Blog:News/The_Survivor_2299.
