Fallout 4 Three Dog Announcement

It's not a question of if, but when Bethesda Softworks will unveil Fallout 4. The Maryland-based publisher/developer acquired the franchise from its original creator, Interplay Interactive, in 2007 (though a stiff legal battle muddied the situation until 2011) and has been forthright about its plans to expand the series beyond Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, the current two Bethesda iterations released in 2008 and 2010.

Now, a new tease from a familiar face voice has indicated that a Fallout announcement, of some shape or form, is incoming. Erik Todd Dellums -- better known to Fallout fans as Three Dog, the dissident DJ and news anchor of the in-game radio station Galaxy News Radio ("Bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts") -- tweeted that he could be returning for yet another installment in the series:

Interestingly, Dellums's tweet doesn't appear to be of the unsanctioned variety, the kind of secret-outing discourse occasionally provided when a voice actor isn't exactly keen on a developer's PR policies; he followed up by stating that "permission" was given for the tease:

But of course the Fallout franchise has also been tied, albeit loosely, to a film adaptation over years. To help the speculation fester further, Dellums retweeted one responder who ventured at both possibilities:

Considering Bethesda's current paucity of projects, however, Fallout 4 seems the likelier scenario. With work on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim ostensibly finishing up -- the game's latest rumored DLC, "Redguard," would likely be its last  -- the company's in-house developers have a great deal of freedom in deciding their next move. Bethesda tends to nurture its projects, to string out development across a number of years, and an early Fallout 4 announcement now (or in the near future) would place it in prime position for the next generation of consoles.

And Dellums's inclusion could point us towards Fallout's next destination. Last August  it was suggested that Fallout 4 might be shipping up to Boston, Massachusetts, when Bethesda developers were rumored to be mapping out parts of the city and consorting with associates at MIT. Should Fallout 4 feature Three Dog, however, the voice of populism in post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. (aka the Capital Wasteland), it would suggest that at least to some extent Fallout 3's central setting is returning. Perhaps Fallout 4 would tie multiple major cities into its open-world gameplay, akin to Assassin's Creed, or even multiple protagonists a la Grand Theft Auto V.

What do you think 2013 has in store for the Fallout 4 and Bethesda's post-apocalyptic-wasteland series?

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Source: Erik Todd Dellums Twitter [via VG 24/7]