That ‘Fallout 4’ Teaser Site Was Fake. Dammit.

Sound the alarm! We’ve got a derailed hype train over here.

TheSurvivor2299 was a viral teaser site that, for the last 10 days, people thought was for the mythical Fallout 4.

It was a complex scam. Every so often, the black site with white countdown timer text would update with a new piece of Morse code.

TheSurvivor2299 was an alternate reality game that the internet at large believed was a massive Fallout 4 teaser. From cryptic morse code, terrifying messages through to cryptic real-world radio broadcasts, this thing went deep, and now it did some cool stuff.

At the centre of the site, first discovered in mid-November, is a countdown which readers guessed was a clock for the announcement of a 2014 Fallout game.

The first Morse code snippet translated to “Calling any station. Calling any station. Calling any station. This is OZ. Please stand by.” Another creepy one translated to, “Calling all stations, calling all stations, calling all stations. Boston is gone, I repeat, Boston is gone. No Hope. Frequency 3450 Return Transmission. God Bless America.”

That was just before a pirate radio forum noticed strange transmissions on 3450Hz, a radio frequency detectable near Boston and Providence. A brief snippet someone recorded featured an air raid siren, warning klaxon and cryptic phone keyboard messages. That’d be terrifying to hear without the context of the ARG!

The countdown coincided with the VGX Awards over the weekend, where the creator of TheSurvivor2299 had hoped Bethesda would be forced to show off what they’re working on for Fallout 4. Alas, nothing was shown.

The hoaxer is doing a Reddit Ask-Me-Anything right now, and he said he did it because he “just wants to watch the world burn”.

Turns out that the excellent story behind this elaborate hoax was drawn from a 50-page Fallout script he has been working on set alongside the events of Fallout: New Vegas. I can’t wait to read it! [Kotaku via r/fallout]


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