Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is an upcoming game planned to be published by Bethesda Softworks.

Setting
Not much is known about the setting of Fallout 4 so far. When asked to give hints as to the setting of the next Fallout game, Jason Bergman said (translated from Norwegian), "You'll get no tips from me. But the Mojave Wasteland was a fun place to explore, wasn't it?"

Development
Initially, in 2004, Bethesda Softworks licensed from Interplay Entertainment the rights to create and publish three Fallout games (Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 4). Later, in 2007, Bethesda purchased the entire franchise, and Interplay licensed back from Bethesda the rights to a Fallout MMORPG. The legal dispute is now over, with Bethesda Softworks and its in-house development studio retaining the rights to all of the Fallout franchise, including an MMO.

In 2008, Bethesda's Pete Hines said: "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." He also added: "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."

As of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda has modified a variant of the Gamebryo engine, dubbed the Creation engine. It is possible, though unconfirmed, that this engine will also be used for Fallout 4.

In January 2013, Erik Todd Dellums confirmed he was in discussions with Bethesda about a future role that may involve a return of his character, Three Dog.

Release date
In August 2010, Todd Howard revealed in an interview with Eurogamer that Bethesda was working on two projects; one had been in development for 2 years (beginning after Fallout 3 was released), and the other was still in pre-production. It is now known that the title farther along in development was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. There is still no confirmation on what the second game is.

In April/May 2012, it was revealed that Bethesda is committed to releasing Dishonored in 2012, and The Elder Scrolls: Online in 2013. Although these titles are being made by different studios (Dishonored by Arkane Studios and The Elder Scrolls: Online by Zenimax Online), and thus would not affect the development of Fallout 4 completely, this could still be an indication of a longer wait for Fallout 4 to allow Bethesda to better allocate marketing and QA resources, and not have its own titles directly compete with each other.

On January 9th 2013, the voice actor behind Three Dog (Erik Todd Dellums) was given permission by Bethesda to hint towards his appearance soon; on his Twitter account, he stated, "To all my #Fallout3 and #ThreeDog fans: There may be more of the Dog coming! Fingers crossed!"

On April 15, Bethesda Game Studios announced on bethblog that they had completed all new content for Skyrim and were moving the studio's attention to an as of yet unknown title that had previously been in pre-production. Although Bethesda Softworks did announce The Evil Within during the same week, this is being developed by another studio and will have no direct impact on whatever project Bethesda Game Studios is currently working on.

Past attempts
Black Isle Studios also planned to make a Fallout 4 after their Fallout 3 (Van Buren) project was finished, but it was canceled and the rights to the franchise were sold. Nothing is known about this earlier version of Fallout 4, except that Caesar's Legion was to play a big part in it.