Our friends at Kotaku US have already made their case as to why they think this reported ‘Fallout 4’ teaser site is fake, but the site continues to ‘do stuff’ regardless.
The site has gone from beeping out what seemed to be some sort of code, to now showing off some kind of encrypted message. This is looking like either some kind of elaborate hoax or a super long drawn out viral campaign. Either way, I don’t know whether to be annoyed or intrigued.
The cool thing about the internet is that someone will solve this (probably within the hour, possibly by the time I’ve finished writing this story) so hopefully we’ll have more of an idea of what the hell is going on soon.
(Please be Fallout 4, please be Fallout 4)
Update: As predicted it took the internet roughly five seconds to solve the code: “THE INSTITUTE IS SEALED. THEY WON’T HELP US I’M HEADING TO BLACK ROW. -TBNLS 512-“
Comments
52 responses to “Okay, Now That ‘Fallout 4’ Teaser Site Is Doing More Stuff…”
“THE INSTITUTE IS SEALED. THEY WON’T HELP US I’M HEADING TO BLACK ROW. -TBNLS 5120-“
What did I tell you! Before I even finished writing the story!
<3 you internet!
explain how you solved this?
ninetyninepercent FROM FUNKYJUNK DID TRANSLATE IT FIRST. NOT ME.
”
THE INSTITUTE IS SEALED. THEY WON’T HELP US I’M HEADING TO BLACK ROW. -TBNLS 5120-” The message decoded.
Is a vigenere cipher with the passphrase being vaulttec.
already solved: THE INSTITUTE IS SEALED. THEY WON’T HELP US. I’M HEADING TO BLACK ROW. -TBNLS 5120-
“THE INSTITUTE IS SEALED. THEY WON’T HELP US I’M HEADING TO BLACK ROW. -TBNLS 512-
I am praying to all the gamer gods that it is another fallout!
Please be fallout 4, please be fallout 4..
those beeps were Morse code, it’s new code appears to be:
Calling all stations, this is overseer vault 119 Emergency of unknown origin. SOS SOS SOS Vault 119 Quabbin 7667 I say again SOS SOS SOS Vault 119 Quabbin 7667 EN unknown
Fairly comprehensive compilation of updates here: http://goo.gl/FzZ2y1
Definitely Fallout 4.
Wow, that is damn elaborate ….
I guess we’ll fine out in under ten days time. I’m still thinking tha Bethesda’s silence is a good thing
A very valve-esk thing to do.
i’m not sold. its pretty elaborate, but theres some things that dont add up.
like the domain being registered by GoDaddy, not CorporateDomains like every otehr BethSoft site.
the IP address of survivor2299 points to a host in Poland, unlike the rest of Beth’s sites, which are hosted in Marylands.
probably the most glaring hole though is that the countdown ends on the 11/12
thats 3 days after the Spike VGAs, which would be the most likely place for an announcement (like they did with Skyrim)
the teaser site went live before the VGAs had a solid date, so yeah….
Edit: dont get me wrong, I want a new Fallout more than anyone, especially one in the Skyrim engine. I’m almost certain that its in the works & will be announced sometime soon… but I just doubt that this teaser page has anything to do with it.
I think they would use a different host to try and hide the fact that it is a Bethesda game.
also, parts of the JavaScript contained in that site have come from all over the place.
just doesn’t feel like a site produced by a big company.
A successful ruse then perhaps.
Bethesda are reading your post and clasping their hands together Mr Burns style thinking “it worked, we have fooled the internet”
OMG OMG OMG OMG next gen fallout OMG OMG OMG
“nuclear winter has come” implies that fallout is already here, maybe they should have said that “nuclear winter is coming”
Half Life 3 confirmed. 😛
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesurvivor2299.com
Wikipage
There are places called “Blackrow” in the UK
And there are places called Institute” / “The Institute” in the UK
“The Institute” in the Fallout Universe specifically refers to M.I.T.
Which, after the war, was the place 99% of researchers & scientists in America ended up.
Which dovetails nicely with the earlier message about Boston.
yep. also a few guys from Bethesda’s art team were spotted location scouting around Boston a few years ago.
I’m just not convinced that this site is an official teaser though. feels more… fan-made.
Boston?
I hope there is a cheers pub
i’m not 100% down with American geography, but Boston doesn’t exactly stand out to me as a iconic setting.
Not like Washington or Las Vegas…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Historic_Landmarks_in_Boston
also as i said its where TV Series Cheers is set
Iconic in the real world. no. But in the Fallout Universe it’s one of the sources of the most mysterious nations to emerge from post-war United States.
The whole of Massachusetts has become The Commonwealth, which is highly secretive. Little is known either in canon or meta fallout universe, and would make an interesting story, at least to expand the world as a whole. Basically, all that’s known is that Boston was the site of a direct hit, and the Commonwealth is highly advanced technologically, thanks to (wait for it) the efforts of the equally mysterious Institute; The crown jewel of the Commonwealth and what is left of the pre-war Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
I hate these kind of things. They dont build suspense they just piss people off.
Announce it already or just shut up Bethesda.
I don’t know if this is PR for Fallout 4 but with Skyrim 2 years old now and The ELder Scrolls on-line coming out next year, I don’t see them releasing a single player Elder Scrolls game to close to the on-line one and they must have been working on something in the last year or two.
seems the standard Bethesda development cycle has been :
1. launch Oblivion
2. 80% of devs start work on Fallout 3, wile the remaining 20% work on DLC
3. launch Fallout 3
4. 80% of devs start work on Skyrim, while the remaining 20% work on DLC
5. Launch Skyrim
6……. if they go with the same cycle & timing, Fallout 4 has been in the works for 2 years & should be announced sometime soon for a Nov/Dec 2014 release.
Elder Scrolls Online is being developed by ZeniMax Online, not Bethesda Softworks, so it shouldnt affect whatever else BethSoft is working on.
Also you realise most “devs” are just contractors so they can just hire more
Sorry to say you’ve got your timeline screwed up there. You’ve got to consider that Fallout: New Vegas also fits in between fallout 3 and Skyrim.
nope,NV was made by Obsidian, FO3 & skyrim were Bethesda Softworks.
ESO has nothing to do with BGS, its being developed by a completely separate team.
I’m not sure what the encrypted part of this means. For everyone that has played Fallout: New Vegas, while in towns or camps people would often say something similar to, “It’s so hot out here you almost wish for a NUCLEAR WINTER.” Now, I’m not sure about this, but it’s the only thing I can relate to a nuclear winter in the Fallout franchise.
I did a little research and figured out what a Nuclear Winter is.
After a Nuclear bomb is dropped the blast messes with the atmosphere. After a while (and since loads of bombs were dropped all over the world, the atmosphere would have been massively screwed up, making the nuclear winer happen a long time after the war) all the clouds come back and blot out the sun. Non-stop. For at least a year. Its gets insanely cold and quite hard to be above ground at any time.
I thinking the next Fallout will have to do with living while the nuclear winter is here. This is just speculation.
Perhaps the nuclear winter is the time between the announcement (or tease if you will ) and the actual release if the game? Even after they announce, we won’t see a playing copy for 6+ months me thinks….
A nuclear winter would tie in with using the Skyrim engine for Fallout… food for thought?
Fallout fuckin’ 4
Cannot wait! Fallout 3 was my first RPG (or the closest I’ll ever get to one) and always brings back great memories thinking about the world I experienced.
I’m not sure about Kotaku US to so blatantly posting that this is fake, considering all of their arguments against it are pretty weak.
“The site is counting down to the wrong date” – if you insist that it’s going to be announced at the VGX awards, which may not be the case at all.
“Bethesda hasn’t said a thing. If this was their teaser, don’t you think they’d want to embrace it?” – No, it’s called an ARG, a viral campagin. The mystery is what gets people involved and hyped. Why the hell would they ruin that by giving it all away the second a news website starts asking questions? Also, wouldn’t it be more likely that Bethesda would come out against this campaign if it was fake, rather than just not comment?
“Would a professional video game company really put up a teaser website with such an annoying beeping noise?” – yes, yes they would.
“Yes, the domain says it was registered by Bethesda parent company ZeniMax, but there are inconsistencies” – it would have most likely been registered by a 3rd party, such as 42 Entertainment who would run the campaign. If the ARG actually involves real emergency broadcasts in the Boston area then with that scale I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 42 Entertainment.
The ARG is getting bigger and building hype, and it seems like it’ll be worth it because this isn’t just a normal game launch. This isn’t only the next Fallout after the stupidly successful Fallout 3, it will also be the first real Next Gen game released by Bethesda, so as nice as Skyrim looks on a pimped out PC, this game could raise the benchmark even higher.
Just did a check via network-tools.com:-
http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=express&host=http%3A%2F%2Fthesurvivor2299.com%2F
take notice the email address… nuff said
plus if you follow the whois.godaddy.com 🙂
There have been a few updates to the Morse code messages since this article was published:
CQ CQ CQ DE VT OS 119 ANB NR QBN SOS V DR BRE II SOS V DR BRE EN UNKN LVL 1 2 3 GONE SRV ON SL LVL 4
Possible Translation:
Calling all stations, this is Vault Overseer 119, anybody near Quabbin? SOS Vault door breach, repeat, SOS Vault door breach, enemy unknown, level 1, 2, and 3 gone, survivors on secure location level 4
CQ CQ CQ DE VT 119 SOS LVL4 UND ATTK OS IS DEAD II SOS LVL4 UND ATTK OS IS DEAD WE WNT MK I
Possible Translation:
Calling all stations, this is Vault 119, SOS, Level 4 is under attack, Overseer is dead, repeat, SOS, Level 4 is under attack, Overseer is dead. We won’t make i(t)
Hello hello, what’s this:
http://vault119.com
Widely believed to be fake.
Now it has a countdown as well. 9 11:53:40 when I checked it.
I love bees.
Enough about Fallout! What about another Terminator game, Bethesda??…
All I want for Christmas is Fallout 4 confirmed