Rumor: Fallout 4 heads to Boston and MIT

An alleged MIT employee claims Bethesda's been scouting the school and Boston for Fallout 4.

Bethesda is going to make Fallout 4. It will do this because Bethesda and its owner, publishing umbrella ZeniMax, are businesses and they make creative works likely to make money. People liked Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. A lot. Yeah, Bethesda will probably sit down and build another irradiated wasteland for people to wander and mess about in. That’s not in question: It’s the locale that will be up in the air. The Elder Scrolls studio let you drift about Las Vegas and the District of Columbia in the past. Next time, it’ll let you act out all your post-apocalyptic Good Will Hunting fan fiction and fight a mutated Bill Belichick. Fallout 4 is headed to Boston.

So says Reddit user “Fallout4boston.” This intrepid tipster hit the aggregator community over the weekend claiming to be an MIT employee. That educational institution will figure prominently in the next Fallout game as Bethesda has reportedly paid a number of scouting visits to the campus lately.

The Boston area is called “The Commonwealth” in Fallout lore, an area as nasty and unforgiving as Pittsburgh remnants “The Pit,” but also home to the “Institute” and the “Railroad.” The Institute, built from the remnants of MIT, is an organization producing technologically advanced weapons and human-like androids that pop up in Fallout 3’s quests. The Railroad is the Institute’s sworn enemies, a group trying to free the androids. Both factions are classic Fallout, cleaver references to familiar 20^th century trappings, slightly warped. Example: The Railroad refers to the Tech Model Railroad Club, an unofficial group formed at MIT in the ‘40s remembered as the first hacker collective.

A perfect set up for a new Fallout adventure. That technological conflict is very different from past entries in the series, and the harsh coastal climate of Boston should make for a familiar but different setting. Not to mention all the hilarious accents wandering muties are bound to have!

All this is speculation though. The only official anything out there for Fallout 4 is the ZeniMax-owned URL Fallout4.com, but its owned that domain since 2004, back when Bethesda’s ownership of the series was hotly contested by Interplay.

That said, Fallout 4 will probably be a reality well before series albatross, the Fallout MMO. ZeniMax Online is hard at work on The Elder Scrolls Online.