Bethesda Teases The Future Of Fallout

Bethesda has asked its fans to "please stand by" with a tweet and livestream seemingly pointing to Fallout news, and they are doing exactly that.

Bethesda sent out the above tweet this morning boasting a hashtag and a simple gif asking folks to "please stand by." That is, of course, a popular image associated with the beloved Fallout series, leading to all kinds of speculation in this final stretch of days before E3 2018.

On top of that, the team has now gone live with a stream that displays a monitor boasting the same image, as well as a Fallout Vault Boy figurine in the foreground. Our understanding is that, save a random appearance from a dude drinking a soda, no other activity has really happened on the stream in the last several hours.

Despite that fact, Bethesda has gotten their wish, as folks are standing by in large numbers. As of this writing, 138,126 people are viewing the stream and flooding the chat with random theories, conversations and the usual mix of internet nonsense. According to the view count, a total of nearly 14 million folks have seen the stream, all told.

We've got to give credit to the Bethesda employees who thought this little scheme up. It required basically zero effort and has still managed to get the entire game-o-sphere buzzing about potential Fallout news.

We wouldn't be surprised if the stream ends with no actual revelations outside of maybe a reminder that the Bethesda E3 press conference is a little less than two weeks away. It's not totally unheard of for a publisher to reveal their game before the show in order to steal some of the early limelight, but it wouldn't make sense for a publisher that has their own press conference scheduled for Sunday, June 10, at 6:30 p.m. PT. Any Fallout info would be big news, so why let the irradiated cat out of the bag before you have everyone's full and undivided attention?

As for what this news might be, there are a couple of ideas that make the most sense. For starters, this fall will mark the 10th anniversary of Fallout 3, and folks feel there's a pretty good chance that game will be receiving some sort of remaster to celebrate. It's also possible that a Switch version of Fallout 3 is on the way, though we'd be surprised if Bethesda was using this kind of viral marketing for something like that. We're not saying that news wouldn't be rad, just maybe not "vague stream that has everyone's attention" rad.

Finally, there's always the chance that this announcement will be for some sort of smaller Fallout spinoff, or even Fallout 5. The latter seems less likely, as we figure Elder Scrolls will be getting a new numbered entry before a new Fallout.

We'll just have to wait and see what the stream reveals, if anything. Otherwise, June 10 is just around the corner!