That would be 100% OK by me, but wild speculation and brainstorming is kind of fun too

I will get some flak from this but maybe...

ALIEN ABDUCTION?

I totally agree, the simplest and most straightforward explanations are often the best. But it still doesn't mean that you couldn't use the setup to your advantage from a storytelling point of view. For example, our family all go into cryo at the same time; our couple are 35 and their child is, let's assume, 6 months old. When our protagonist is eventually set free to explore the post-apocalyptic world, not only could his family have been thawed out much earlier, they could even have been brought out of cryo at different times.

But what could any of this have to do with the story? Well I think there are one or two very viable possibilities, more on this later...

House was in a form of stasis. Not cryostasis, though.
He aged.
Cryostasis is what is used in the medical field of cryonics, where people are hoping to "fast forward" to a point in time where there is a cure for a terminal disease they have. The process involved stops all biological activity; they are actually and truly dead and perfectly preserved. But in a way that they can be revived at a later date, where a cure for whatever lead them to be cryogenically frozen can be administered.

This is why there shouldn't be any vr sim type pf thing in conjunction with it. Shouldn't- i cant say if Bethesda would make the distinction.
Think about what aging is. It is cell death. The only way to stop cell death, would be to completely stop cellular biological activity. This means your brain is not "on".

But they would still exist during this time (which would not be the case if, for example, time travel were used and the 200 years were bypassed). If you put a turkey in the freezer for 3 months, it doesn't 'cease to be' just because it's frozen. It would still actually be 3 months older when you took it out, but it would have been preserved.

this is true, but only in the most basic level of existence.
I'm stating what I am based solely as reasoning for not being able to use VR. Edited above.

No. House wasn't in stasis. He had life extension not cyrostasis. Big differents. He still aged.

I totally agree with you that VR would not really fit. In fact I was actually pointing out that when Pete mentioned in his interview "a 235 year old man", he was effectively ruling out anything like VR, or time travel, or an android protagonist, which only really leaves cryo as an option. I was simply stating that although you would not have any recollection of your time in cryo, your body would have still existed throughout this time, but your cells would not have aged. But this would still mean that you are over 200 years old at the start of the main game, just that in terms of biology, you would have the body of a 35 year-old.

His http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cryonics#Fallout:_New_Vegas was basically the equivalent of keeping a figurative and literal vegetable fresh in a fridge for 200 years. Almost like a mammoth trapped in Ice, but with the core systems like the digestive, respiratory and neural systems kept alive with machines.

So, if the PC hasn't aged, the nomenclature Cryonic Stasis is more fitting, yes?

Tranquility Lane is definitely implied here apparently; minus the guy with the god-complex (or maybe not and you've been reliving that frantic hour for 200 years in different variants until a friendly neighbourhood Vault dweller comes along and unplugs the professor...)

No its cryostasis.. there are even cryo weapons (you even see one being fired by the synth in the gameplay trailer the weapon that fires a blue laser that emits an icy particle effect)

Cryostasis, hibernation, suspended animation; there's a multitude of options. Cryostasis is a distinct possibility though considering the lack of memory of anything after reaching the Vault. Hence why I said 'implied' as the people from Tranquility Lane had been in a form of suspended animation.

With all the cryo weapons being added as well as the leak saying it was cryo stasis.. im 99.9% sure it is cryostasis.

Based on the evidence we've seen so far, the scientist with the Pip-Boy was outside the main vault, most likely trapped between the vault door and the elevator shaft which would both have been sealed. This means that whatever the intended experiment, let's just say a 10 year cryogenics test, it clearly did not work out this way because there was no-one with the correct know-how to set and end date. Once inside the vault, our family and any other survivor's realise that there is not sufficient food and other supplies in the vault, and so they have no choice but to use the stasis pods. Much later, they are brought out of stasis by "other means"...

*lightbulb*

I wonder if we're actually rescued by a faction? It's highly unlikely that we just woke up by ourselves and decided to walk on out.

I thought the people in Tranquility Lane was very old and only kept alive by the life support, this is why you could not simply rescue them as you did with your father.

Cryostasis or other sort of stasis would not have time pass from started to stopped.

Not sure how much who happened after they entered the vault except lining up and being frozen or similar.

More interesting is that happens then he wakes up. is everybody else dead or did everybody still present wake up at once and it was a fight?

Probably something as simple as an equipment malfunction, or whatever dark experiment vault 111 was meant to play out. You emerge as the sole survivor, so whatever went down killed everything else was in there.

I doubt it's a faction because that would mean they woke you up, and you promptly kill everyone in front of you after having just woken up from a 200 year nap with nothing but your clothes.

There must be some story as to why everyone else is dead when you wake up, but I think it's safe to assume you wake up to a ghost vault (save rad roaches to teach you combat). There's a skeleton right at the entrance, and I think if you were to wake up to a population, somebody would clean up the dead body dressed as a scientist just laying around their home.

So from what you guys are suggesting, we could be looking at some kind of system failure, or perhaps being rescued by a faction. What if it was actually both. Sorry for sounding so cryptic, all will be revealed once I post my full theory up on here. I think I can explain what happens to our protagonist and their spouse and child inside the vault, as well as a good part of the main storyline as well. And it all ties together really nicely.

Another faction doesn't make any sense considering we are the only survivor.

Said faction would have to have some means to break into the vault from the outside, only to die at the hands of the PC or some radroaches. You could say maybe robots killed them but codsworth is the first thing you have any conversation with considering the PC can't believe it's been 200 years.

If he had met some faction or computer intelligence before this, the time passed would have inevitably come up in that dialogue.

Equipment malfunction or the stasis machines just being set to release at some year make the most sense, and the only mystery now is what's killed everyone else in the vault.

Who said anything about us being the only survivor? Todd said that we emerge as "the sole survivor of vault 111", and I think that this is a very clever and specific choice of words. What it confirms is that when we emerge from the vault, there is nobody else left alive inside the vault, but somebody else could have gotten out before us.

And as for breaking in, how do you break into a sealed nuclear bunker from the outside? The answer is that you don't, you actually break in from the inside. And I believe that this actually happens twice.

I think it's pretty obvious that people left considering there's a dead body right next to the entrance.

I'm not sure if it's as obvious your family leaves because they surely would have woken you up or simply walked 30 seconds to your home and spoken to Codsworth.

OT though, it's pretty clear cryogenics are in place somewhere, unless a whole simulation reveal comes out of leftfield.

Or it could all be a total recall situation where after it's over you wake up in the vault and everything else was a simulation.

Again... why would Codsworth recognize you if it was just a simulation?

No the PC is a clone or an android with the memories of the original implanted in it, now I’ve ruined the plot twist for everyone.