A website owned by ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, is teasing a new Fallout game, and the announcement seems imminent.
The site in question, thesurvivor2299.com, was recently updated with a countdown and morse code audio bed. It reads, "Nuclear winter is coming . . ." before displaying a countdown to Sunday, December 1. As of writing, there are 5 days, 19 hours, and 44 minutes remaining in the countdown.
The r/Fallout Reddit subforum has translated the currently looping Morse code message. It reads:
NCRA UNIT BST 314 7 EMRG MSG NEW YORK STAGE 7 WASHINGTON STAGE 7 LOS ANGELES STAGE 7 AUSTIN STAGE 7 CHICAGO STAGE 7 NEW ORLEAN STAGE 7 LAS VEGAS UNKNOWN MIAMI STAGE 7 DALLAS STAGE 7 DENVER STAGE 7 SAN DIEGO STAGE 7 SAN FRANCISCO STAGE 7 BOSTON STAGE 7.
As Redditor grizzithal points out, the Stage references likely tie in with the International Nuclear Event Scale, which categorizes nuclear accidents in a 0-7 range. Stage 7, the most dramatic of nuclear events, is deemed a "major accident."
Of note: Las Vegas is categorized as "Unknown" in the Morse code message. IncGamers (credit to VG24/7 for our story) points out this is probably due to the events of Fallout: New Vegas. Perhaps not so coincidentally, both Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas received Steam updates today, which the official Fallout Twitter account cites as adding support for cloud saves. Cloud saves to impact Fallout 4, perhaps.
Join the conversation in the comments below. Any Fallout 4 theories to share? Have you noticed something interesting about the teaser site or Morse code message?