I hope Fo4 is out in time for Valentine's Day 2014.

My guess is that around E3 they will announce that they are working on it, but thats it. I dont expect to see a trailer of any kind.

This years E3 will be an historic event. Mark my words!

Don't count on it.

Maybe, not out of the question.

It will probably be as hilarious as every year, I'll laugh especially hard this year when Fallout 4 is a no show. I'll save a laugh for this topic.

Even if two teams worked both on Skyrim and Fallout 4, it would look like this: Skyrim team is finishing up the game and developing DLC. Another team is created, consisting of lead designers, concept artists and writers. Up until the moment of halting all work on Skyrim, Fallout 4 wasn't really in development. There may have been a fork of the engine created and some prototyping and proof of concept work done, but the real development (building the 3D world, character models, making the quests work, etc.) of the game started a few weeks ago.

This is why I believe there may be a confirmation of Fallout 4 on E3 or other event of this kind this year, but I wouldn't bet on it. If yes, I don't think we will be shown anything - no trailer, no live action teaser. It's just too soon. If all the planning, writing is 100% completed and all the work left is building the actual game... I have no idea if that process takes 12 months, 18 months or longer. How long did Obsidian work on New Vegas, by the way? This may give us an idea how long a game is made when all the technology is ready.

Concepting is extremely important. Or you run into the problem the Thief 4 team ran into. Developing the game 4+ times and changing the code so much the original vertical slice used to get funding no longer works because no one agrees what the hell the game is supposed to be about. Just a random fact. A lot of the best game developers will spend more time in this phase all agreeing on what they want in the game and how and writing ect. It's the cheapest phase of development, and a critical time for getting everything right. Then they simply code the game when the vision is complete. To my knowledge this is how Bethesda approaches it, and it usually takes them round 1-2 years of "concept" phase.

I expect the reveal to happen at the Spike VGA's like so many reveals. Bethesda doesn't seem to be the type to shake up the process now, so why not? It's worked for them well so far. Mark my words Fallout 4 2014 October will most likely be the release day maybe even14th day depending on if they want some lulz for the release date. Why do I suspect this? Well concept work started as soon as Skyrim was done and shipped. If so that means they probably actually started work around... December-January and only told us recently. Which I suspect is the case. They were probably developing something for Skyrim THEN the rest of the team was needed to "ramp up" which implies there was some sort of coding going on and now they needed everyone on board. Also sounds like they are making good progress. Very productive.

Just my theory.

Well, since they stopped developing Skyrim and moved to this another project... this may indeed mean that the initial development of Fallout 4 has been finished and now everyone will have something to do, not just writers and lead designers (who may have been working on Fallout 4 long before Skyrim was released... but I don't think we'll ever know how BGS works ).

fonv was done in less than 18 months

+1. What I've been saying in other threads, seemingly over and over.

We really need to get a sticky thread on this board with and explanation of the Bethesda Softworks vs. BGS distinction. There's a lot of continuing confusion on this point.

There is a difference between Bethesda softworks and Bethesda Game studios, The first publishes games like dishonored,wet,Rage and the evil within etc.While the second develops Fallout and the Elder Scrolls.

Unless the game studios branch (the one with Todd Howard, istvan and Jason Bergman Etc) are planing a new Ip that would incur big risks they will be working on one of there two IP's they develop and since they made skyrim last it's an educated guess to say Fallout is next inline.

And just to clarify TES:online is being made by Zenimax (or one of there sister companies or something) not Bethesda just in case any one is wondering.

On topic:

I'd say anything other than just an announcement is a huge and wild long shot as it's is just in full development, and i'm not sure they would announce it at E3 even.

But I think there is a chance that beth will announce it this year or early next year with a 2014 release.

Sorry I meant to edit I keep doing this lately...

I agree with this especially production/pre-development.

As for the release date i'd go for 2014 October as well i'm pretty sure every Fallout game has came out in October i'm not sure if it's anything to do with the date of the great war but there you go

Skyrim was a HUGE financial success and the purpose of any business is to make money. That fact alone make makes a new TES possible.

Second, development on Skyrim stopped in 2011 before the game was released regardless of what Bethesda says. Do you really think hundreds of people were working on Skyrim DLC from December 2011 – March 2013? Not a chance given the relatively small DLC content. Also those hundreds of people make really good money, do you really think DLC sales would cover the salaries and expenses of all these employees for a time period of a year and a half? No..

Thought this was important enough to quote as it backs up my point. The next game will likely have a trailer at e3 and will likely be fallout 4. Odds being roughly 64%. TESVI-27%. Some TES or Fallout spin off game 7%. Other game 2%. Those are as of this post based on all current info. This game whatever it may be was started in 2008 with preliminary ideas. In 2011 it went into half production or start up team as it was. And officially it went into full production a few weeks ago. Given this knowledge there should be enough done to at least make some kind of announcement at e3 this year even if it is only what game it is.

Did you know... 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

Yes and no FNV started whith the bricks it took 18 mouths to put em in the walls...Beth will have to make new bricks for FO4 befor thay can start bilding.

No way they release another TES, and if they do, I won't buy it. I bought Skyrim, and the only reason why I did was because it is the group who would more than likely make FO4 and I wanted to see what they were doing.

If they skip over FO4 to make another TES, meh!

But, that isn't going to happen. TES online will keep their fans satisfied while we get FO4. Flood the market with TES is not a good idea.

The chances are very slim for a new TES you simply ignore the fact that FO3 was HUGE financial success too. There was a reason why it got one or two more DLC's as originally planned. About the hundreds of people: Actually the team was pretty small for such a huge game as can be seen here: http://blog.joelburgess.com/2013/04/skyrims-modular-level-design-gdc-2013.html#more 90 people. Respect Bethesda, respect.

Is there a chance that Beth knew the next game would be next-gen console but is being forced to wait to announce the game until the systems themselves have been announced? In my mind I could see that they started working on F4 in 2011 and are way farther along than we think. However, with the Xbox about to be announced, maybe Beth just recently got the launch dates and are being asked to be a launch game, thus the rush to finish F4 in time requiring the whole team now.

Just a theory...

Fallout 3 sold 8.05 million copies while Skyrim sold 14.57 million copies, a difference of 6.52 million copies or $326,000,000 assuming $50 game price. Plus Skyrim has been out about half the time Fallout 3 has. I would expect Skyrim to sell about 18 million when all is said and done. So yeah Skyrim was the bigger finanicial sucess. It made more money in half the time. Not saying this means the next game is TES, just saying it makes a good arguement for a profit driven company to persue the best ROI.

I was thinking about that too. Skyrim was a huge success, so Bethesda may have made a decision to make another TES. It's safer to do and is a guaranteed financial success.

On the other hand, Fallout has lots of fans and there is a big chance Fallout 4 may repeat the success of Skyrim or even surpass it.

Then there are developers. Do they want to work on a new TES game or do they want to take a break from this universe and work on something totally different (FO4), to let their minds rest a bit, refresh?

And... maybe... just *maybe*, Bethesda did decide to play it safe and make another TES game, a "Skyrim 2", and hired Obsidian to do Fallout 4 from start to finish? It would be a dream come true, although Obsidian seems to be quite busy with a few projects already in development, so it's unlikely, but I'm just thinking... or should I say, dreaming

VicDaMoan03, circa 2010:

"TES IV: Oblivion sold approx. 4 million units. Fallout 3 sold 8 million! Twice as much! Obviously, Bethesda should stop making Elder Scrolls games and focus solely on Fallout games, in order to maximize their ROI."

Im not sure about how many people, but i dont think its fair to just say, "it was only a few DLCs", regarding how many people were still working on skyrim. becasue its not just the people makeing DLC you need tot hink about.
Sure, you have the DLCs themselves, which need artists, storyboarders, programmers; all over multiple platforms- thats quite a few prople, right there... but there is a whole other side of the business that needs to support the dev team; QA, lisencing, managers, promotion, payroll and other admin, ...

And aside from DLC, we also need to consider there were still updates being rreleased for all of those platforms.

I could see a pretty sizable work force in order to make this happen.

OT.
I would like to know for sure that its on the horizon. Im pretty sure F4 is whats being worked on, and just want confirmation. i dont really expect a trailer at this point though.
May be ill be pleasantly surprised, though.

I'm guessing a teaser will be shown. No gameplay.

You do have to factor in that gaming has exploded in that 3 year period, and fallout wasn't a household franchise at the time so it had wouldn't of had skyrim level hype.