CNET también está disponible en español.

Ir a español

Don't show this again

Gaming

Everything we know about Fallout 76 before its E3 debut

Bethesda might be taking the wasteland online. Maybe. We'll find out for sure on Sunday night.

fallout-76-official-teaser-trailer-mp4-00-01-15-26-still004

 Bethesda Game Studios

Think you know Fallout? Think again: Last week, Bethesda teased fans with a new entry into the Fallout series -- and it looks like it could take the series somewhere it's never been before: the Internet.

The company actually spent a full day teasing fans with a live stream of an unmanned television set. It sat for hours, displaying only a mock 1950s test-pattern with the words "Please Stand By."Then, the company rolled this teaser trailer:

The trailer itself doesn't say much about the game -- but fans are already coming up with theories: from analyzing the cover of Take Me Home, Country Roads that plays over the trailer for clues, to examining a blurry purported screenshot of the game lifted from a documentary about Bethesda.

In fact, some fans can't wait -- they've gone back to Fallout 4.

Some fans have already suited up!

Others are extremely cautious -- and are holding off on getting hyped until they learn more about the mysterious title.

Either way, most fans are at least taking the wait for news with a grain of humor.

The truth is, there's just not a lot of official information on Fallout 76 to go around -- but here's everything you need to know about the game to get ready for E3.

What is Fallout, anyway?

Now Playing: Watch this: Survival Mode Is how Fallout 4 should be played
4:48

Ever wondered what would have happened if the Cold War got hot, and everybody dropped atomic bombs on each other? That's Fallout. The first game takes place a little over 80 years after the world was devastated by nuclear warfare and portrays a dystopian wasteland built on the ruins of the United States. Fallout 2 took place just a couple of decades later, but when Bethesda took the franchise over, the timeline jumped forward: Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4 take place around 200 years after the bombs dropped.

In most games, the player is the descendant of people who survived the war by retreating to long-term bomb shelters called Vaults -- and they're leaving the comfort of their underground city for the first time to explore a destroyed and desolate world.

It sounds grim, but it's surprisingly packed with humor and great music, while its engrossing open worlds are buoyed by solid RPG mechanics.

OK then, so what's Fallout 76?

If Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 are anything to go by, Fallout 76 would be earliest game in the Fallout timeline. Previous games in the series mention Vault 76 as one of the earliest bunkers to be opened -- a little more than 20 years after the bombs dropped.

That means players in Fallout 76 will be seeing a world ravaged by the aftermath of nuclear war, but not ravaged by time — making them among the first survivors of the Great War. And most importantly, the first survivors to start rebuilding society.

That's about all we know officially so far, but it meshes well with all the rumors we've heard, like…

It might be an online survival RPG like DayZ or Rust

ss-4bd74e976bc5e2c519cd0011b7192a20126253b9-1920x1080

In Rust, you build bases to survive the elements. Could Fallout 76 be similar?

Facepunch Studios

According to sources close to Kotaku, Fallout 76 started life as a multiplayer prototype for Fallout 4, but evolved into an online survival RPG. That actually makes a lot of sense: Fallout 4 introduced building mechanics to the franchise, tasking the player with building out settlements for other survivors. Bringing that mechanic online would create a game that could look a lot like DayZ or Rust -- making an open-world multiplayer Fallout game that relies on players collecting resources, building settlements and bases and defending them against both other players and the environment.

Bethesda hasn't confirmed any of these rumors, but they still carry a lot of weight: the game's name, its online nature and comparisons to Rust have been anonymously showing up on Reddit and 4chan for months.

You might be playing it really soon

The game was only just teased -- but you might not have to wait long to play it. Just days after Bethesda announced the game, an Amazon listing appeared with a July 31 release. The purported Tuesday launch date was promptly taken down, but it wouldn't be the first time a Fallout game hit the market just a few months after its reveal. Back in 2015, Bethesda showed Fallout 4 for the first time at E3, promising that gamers would be playing it later that year. They were.

We'll find out more about Fallout 76 tomorrow -- E3 2018 is already kicking off.

You can also check out GameSpot's coverage of Fallout 76  and Giant Bomb's coverage of Fallout 76. And for all things E3 2018, head to Gamespot and check out their press conference coverage here.

E3 2018