Have your salt lick? Good, because you'll need it. It seems as though Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax, has just registered a new domain, and if it's on the level, it looks like a website for a new Fallout game.
https://thesurvivor2299.com is the site, and before you dismiss it as a simple hoax, or get to excited, let's first let's look at the basics:
* According to a WhoIs search, Zenimax is indeed listed as the registrant organization, and all the appropriate information is there, right down to the correct address of their corporate office.
* If you actually bother to visit the site, you'll be greeted with a barrage of blips and beeps - morse code. According to this Reddit thread, it translates to the numbers 10, 12, and 13. It's thought the numbers signify a date (December 12, 2013) perhaps signaling when we'll get more information, and see if this is or a hoax or the real deal. There's now also a countdown in place which counts down to that date.
* Here's the most convincing part. Redditor Ryan3395 looked through the site's source code, and found this intriguing bit on line 98: "
* Also buried in the code is the sound file for the repeating morse code, "/radio/fall-river-6191da7f11n.mp3." Fall River is an actual town in Massachusetts, about an hour outside of Boston.
This is almost as discouraging as it is encouraging. While the state does have a history with the game, referred to as simply the "Commonwealth," and home to the shadowy "Institute," formerly known as M.I.T. Sure, technically, M.I.T is in Cambridge, but it's just across the river. Even so, you have to suspend some disbelief for a game set in the post-apocalypse, otherwise no one that ever ate at Primanti's would've bothered with Fallout 3's Pitt DLC.
Geographical discrepancies aside for a moment, die hard Fallout fans may remember a lot of rumors circulating last summer that the next Fallout game would take place in Boston. This was eventually ruled out as the originator of the rumors came forward and admitted it was one great big bag of garbage, having made everything up. But at the same time, others had similar claims, even that Bethesda staff was scouting around the M.I.T. campus.
* Further discouraging is a European IP address (5.133.13.121) that, according to iplocation, is based in Poland. But at the same time, there's also an American IP address (199.107.64.171) in the code, which, again according to iplocation, is based in Zenimax's home turf of Rockland, Maryland.
Granted, none of this guarantees anything, save that some prankster or possibly a Zenimax staffer did some work to make it look authentic. Regardless, the potential is exciting. We've reached out to Bethesda's mouthpiece Pete Hines via Twitter, but don't expect much from that end.
We'll keep you posted if anything else comes to light in the meantime. Otherwise, check back here December 12, 2013.