Discussed a bit in the industry thread and in the intermittently-resurrected Fallout thread, but I thought it would be worthwhile to start a dedicated thread for those (like me) playing catchup on this.
What's The Survivor 2299?
"Hell if I know, but I'm gonna keep talkin' anyway."
Seriously though, nobody is 100% sure. Right now it's just this site:
http://thesurvivor2299.com/
The above site went live in the past week. For those of you who can't see it because of a work firewall or whatever at the moment, the site consists solely of a timer counting down to December 11, with the Vault-Tec logo (Fallout) at the bottom of the page. A repeating morse code message which translate to "11-12-13" plays in the background.
Naturally people immediately deduced that this is a possible teaser for impending announcement of Fallout 4, or some other new game in the Fallout franchise. This theory was reinforced by the fact that
Whois checks on the site seem to indicate it was registered by ZeniMax Media. (ZeniMax is the parent company of Bethesda, the publisher/developer behind Fallout 3 as well as the Elder Scrolls series, among others.)
Files referenced in the source of the page have the names "Bridgeport" and "Fall River," which are towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts, respectively...perhaps hinting at a setting for the game in the New England/metropolitan New York area?
SWEET!
I know!
Erm...not so fast.
Yeah, things might not be so conclusive as they first appear.
Further sleuthing turned up some inconsistencies, or at least some slightly odd stuff.
ZeniMax registered both Wolfenstein's and The Elder Scrolls' domains through Corporate Domains Inc, while TheSurvivor2299 was registered with GoDaddy.com. Meanwhile, ZeniMax uses its own DNS servers for its registrations (ns1.zenimax.com) while TheSurvior2299 uses a separate, self-branded server: ns1.thesurvivor2299.com. Furthermore, the whois page for TheSurvivor2299 is also missing Corporate Service Company's Corporate Domains Inc promotion introducing ZeniMax's known, legitimate domains.
More demoralizingly still, according to
GameInformer, the site's domain resolves to a host in Poland.
Also, (and this is just me nit-picking here, or at least it's probably nit-picking), the 11-12-13 date seems like a somewhat odd choice. ZeniMax/Bethesda have a history of picking catchy dates for the release or announcement of new games, such as the famous 11-11-11 release for Skyrim. However, the date 11-12-13 for December 11, 2013, only makes sense if the date is written in the European format, where the day comes first, followed by the month. The more typical American format is month first, then day, which would make 11-12-13 November 12, 2013...which has obviously come and gone. ZeniMax/Bethesda are both based in the US. The date being in European format would make sense with the fact the site is apparently hosted in Poland...though it seems like a somewhat bone-headed error for a European hoaxer to make.
For their part, ZeniMax has declined to comment on the site or rumors, citing company policy.
Further Muddying of the Waters
After the main site was found, of course some bandwagon chucklefucks decided to wind people up by creating some spurious fake "tie-ins."
This Tumblr (an archive is
here) was one.
This Twitter account was another. Note that the fact these accounts aren't legit doesn't necessarily mean anything about the main Survivor 2299 site one way or the other, of course.
Further Reading & Resources
A compiled "What we know" Google Doc is being maintained and updated
here.
A speculation and hype megathread (now in its fourth installment) from the good people (ahem) at Reddit can be read
here.
Posts
We shall see. We shall see.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
God damn it people this is for SCIENCE, sadly i have 2 charisma and my speech skill is somewhere along the lines of a 17 so I will have to preclude myself from any of the prize monies.
A> Hmmm this sounds like some sort of scam or scamola.
B> Hey check out this sweet sex mod I got and will now use on you
C> <PER> Wait a second what are you hiding behind that curtain.
D> <Negative Karma> Butt stroke
E> <Karma> Oh god you hideously deformed forum troll, take this hat so that people dont poke their eyes out on seeing you.
F> <INT> Isnt it better to wait for the game to be released and enjoy it once its available instead of agonizing over every rumor?
G> <SCIENCE 44/100> I can totally code that up for you, one second.
It was a reasonably well executed hoax, but he could have gotten a lot more mileage out of it by using a different date. I understand he was trying to play off of Bethesda's previous use of "significant" dates before but the "wrong" format of the date was a big red flag. Or if he was committed to using 11-12-13, he should have started it earlier.
On the 6th day of christmas bethesda gave to me 6 screenshots for ESO , 5 middle fingers, 4 khaijit erotic fanfictions, 3 dick punches, 2 twitter posts regarding other games, and an arrow to the knee.