Remember that the Institute is one of the most advance technology centers on the East Coast.

So seeing more advance technology in the area immediately around them is not surprising.

I expect they trade a lot of tech goods, medicines, and medical treatment for food and salvage.

I'm looking forward to seeing more tech in a Fallout game.

Old World Blues was a blast.

Funny. I was just thinking about this. Fired up FO1 this morning, and during the intro you see the Galaxy News logo right before it goes to that clip of the BOS executing that Canadian prisoner. So likely it was the FO universe's version of (insert popular news station),

and Three Dog probably just came upon an old working site in D.C. and decided to bring it back on

So maybe Three Dog is the new head of a revived news network, or he has people bringing up other sites around the blasted U.S. wasteland. If the BOS and Enclave can salvage tech, Im sure that people can salvage other infrastructure and stuff. GNR spans the entire D.C. wasteland after you boost the signal, and if they can re broadcast the signal from station to station......that seems like a pretty good way to get every remaining city/town/ruins or whatever to reconnect.....possibly opening for resettlement across the whole U.S.

Maybe that's the Enclave's new way of trying to regain control of the U.S. in some sort of fashion.

I realize that's super far fetched and probably not likely in any shape or form, but hey it's fun to guess right?

I actually think the idea that you would have to find old records and stuff to add songs to the radio is a great idea. Because then there is an actually reason for you to interact with the stations. Unlike Three Dog....that ass.

He is literally just a dike. "Hey Super mutants broke my relay. I'm to much of a coward to do anything that is actually useful. I just sit here and chirp chirp on my radio like a goon. Now go fix my relay or you will never know where your dad went! MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!!!!"

One of my top ten moments in FO3 was gutting that clown with a ripper.

I don't believe there has ever been a Bethesda game or Fallout game that doesn't take place in an odd numbered year so it's definitely an odd numbered year.

Arena (399), Daggerfall (403), Morrowind(427), Oblivion (433), Skyrim (201), Fallout 1 (2161), Fallout 2 (2241), Fallout 3 (2277) and Fallout New Vegas (2281)

Well, fallout 1 and 2 aren't bethesda

*crawling out of vault*

*yawning*

*scratching butt*

*checking pip-boy"

"what the..., 2-2-2288? THAT late?"

:-)

When we look at this alongside the article seen http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/11723096/Fallout-4-interview-Bethesdas-Todd-Howard-on-building-the-apocalypse.html, we can take the post-war elements of gameplay as being any even number from 2277 onwards. Except that to guarantee a setting after Fallout 3 (as Todd Howard stated in the interview), 2277 actually goes out the window. And so my predicted date of 2285 is actually looking even more likely, due to the 'grey area' that the previously claimed '200 years' now fits into.

For the record, the elements set before Fallout 3, as referenced in the interview, are clearly the pre-war tutorial that we have already seen.

This might not be 100% true, but this article shed some light on the time setting (got it from another thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1526212-new-interview-from-todd-howard/) :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/11723096/Fallout-4-interview-Bethesdas-Todd-Howard-on-building-the-apocalypse.html

Here is the important part:

Same link I posted above lol. But this is very important, as it gives more plausibility to the game being set after both FO3 and NV. It also kind of throws the whole '200 year' argument out the window.

Wasteland Survival guide is canon as useful information or?

I imagine it would be. I trust that the complete/knowledgeable path of the book would be canon information.

Confirmation bias.

In that same article he mentions that the game is set 200 years later. Additionally, he goes on to make a point that the game is set "mostly after Fallout 3" with no reference to FNV :S. Even with information straight from the horse's mouth (Pete Hines) the most we have to go on is 200 years on the dot.

The whole concept of Fallout 4 seems to be built around the idea of moving things forward while remaining firmly grounded in past events. And so it is entirely plausible that we will be seeing character and events from all previous titles, including New Vegas, as I have already suggested.

Add to this the actual pattern of 1. all games being set at some point after the last title, 2. all games being set during an odd-numbered year, 3. Bethesda remaining 'secretive' about many details of previous games until launch, 4. approximations being used all the time to describe events that occurred in the past with a duration close to a large multiple of 10.

Note also that it is actually the interviewer who uses the 200 year reference here, and not Todd Howard. The same interviewer also mistakenly uses the year 2075 with regards to the tutorial.

And so there has still been nothing said by any of the devs that would absolutely exclude a start date after New Vegas. And 2285 would allow 4 full years for events from NV to 'take shape' a little leading up to Fallout 4.

As far as nothing being said, I respectfully disagree. I know it's been hashed out constantly, but again, straight from the https://twitter.com/dcdeacon/status/616721092963512320. It's important to note the phrasing of the question and that while he didn't answer with a direct date, he may have been reaffirming the last bit of the question: "as Todd was clear on the "200."

But look how vague the answer is compared to the one immediately below it:

First question: "Is Fallout 4 2277 Exactly? Or is there a few years difference etc. as Todd was clear on the "200". But people are skeptical."

First answer: "200 years"

Second Question: "Hey pete have you played any fallout4"

Second answer: "yes"

If Pete was being straight up with his answer, then why not clarify it properly as requested by the person asking the question, by saying something like, "yes, set in 2277, which is 200 years after the bombs fall". If you were clarifying a multiple-part question with nothing to hide, you would not give a vague answer, which is exactly what Pete did.

When we now add this to Todd's latest comment about the game being set "mostly after Fallout 3", we can clearly see that they are both being intentionally vague. If it were parallel with FO3 as many people believe, then surely Todd would have said "at the same time as". Also, the 'mostly' part clearly stems from the fact that the tutorial has already been shown as taking place pre-war.

Pete's never been the loquacious type, he only likes to tweet about MLS and US football from what I gather.

Two months is still 'mostly' after Fallout 3, and again the quote has no reference to FNV . Even with that quote alone we can infer that FNV isn't even in the picture and that the events occur before it.

But why would they mention NV at this stage? 200 years would at least imply a connection to FO3, which is why I think this was mentioned in Todd's latest comment. The devs clearly want us to have an idea of at least roughly when the game is set, so we can make sense of the footage we have seen so far.

But think of the series as a whole. For anyone who has played through all of the previous games, each new release signifies a further step along our journey. When we played FO3, we remember what happened during our experience of 1, 2, and tactics. And during NV, we are able to recall our exploits in the Capital Wasteland. Would it not then stand to reason that setting this latest game some time after NV would allow for a more consistent player experience?

Note that this is also true of the entire Elder Scrolls series, not including ES Online, which is a different animal entirely.

They don't mention NV because it probably has no connection to Fo4 outside of the fact that they're both Fallout games set in the United States. FNV is set in the West Coast and handled by the veterans of Fo1 and 2. Fo3 and Fo4 are set in the East Coast and are Bethesda's take on the franchise. This is where Bethesda makes a distinction between West and East. The big thing with FNV is that it could have occurred before Fo3 and nothing would have changed the main storyline, since the only references ever made were the giant robot comments from an older fellow, and Colonel August in a holo recording from Lonesome Road regarding the ED-E eye bot program.

I won't pretend to know why Bethesda would say "we like to keep the series moving forward," only to end up back pedaling on that statement. All I know is that they made that statement about 4 or 5 years ago (correct me if I'm wrong) and it was mentioned in an interview with an Obsidian developer, not so much Bethesda itself. What changed between FNV's development time and Fo4? I don't know. I can only surmise the possibility that Bethesda sees Fo4 as a continuation of Fo3 because they both fall under the East Coast umbrella, and that they may want to keep that distinction without touching the FNV narrative. They might also have plans for the West Coast narrative down the pipeline somewhere knowing how far back development tends to go for Bethesda.

All I do know is that everything Bethesda has said and done about Fo4 points to 2277 as being the date we emerge from Vault 111, explicitly stated or not. They haven't been vague about the start date of the game in any manner of the sort outside of just saying 2277 is 2277. They've been parroting 200 years without really spinning it embellishments or adverbs like "around" or "near." The theories would have more credence (with respect to the start date) if Bethesda had been unclear about the game's start date in the beginning, which just isn't the case at the moment.

Snipped because I wish to give my take on this part of your post specifically. The more I think about 4, and after the recent interview with Todd Howard in the British paper, I am starting to think that 4 may be Bethesda's way of resetting the story a little. Todd says in the article that they really wish to connect us with what was lost, and it could be they don't think 3 did that very well.

I think they might have a few things from 3 be canon, but this story is really the one that will set the tone for what may yet come in the series. It could be that we hear little of 3 in the base game, and only deal with the after effects of 3 in a later DLC that advances the storyline, and timeline, a little. It may be in a DLC that we finally see Dr Li, Myron, and possibly Dr Zimmer come back to the Boston area. I know many said they killed Zimmer, but I did not. In 4 I do not intend to assist the Railroad as I don't view synths as people, but as property regardless of the AI and whether they are self aware. (Separate topic, I know)

In short, I think 4 is the game they wish they would have made in 2008.

Idk at first I thought the 8 year idea( I've been following since the beginning) was to specific and not likely but I do think they are being vague. And Gk has some good points logically but sadly from past experience game developers rarely come up with the same good ideas. I would like to see GK be right. But I can see it from both of your guys point of view.

My question is: If it really is 200 years exactly, why have they decided this? What is the reason behind F4 taking place just a couple of months after the start of F3, when all the previous games have been separated by a number of years?

Even F:NV (which I doubt will be referenced in F4 at all, regardless of timeline) takes place 4 years after F3, when it could easily have been right after, at the same time, or even slightly before, so why the change now? What is so important that the game has to take place so soon after F3?

@Foxtrot

A fine question, but more than likely one that will need to wait until November to get an answer.

the tighter the time frame, the more fallout games will fit in before radiation wears off

I don't know, but why do they need to follow the footsteps of previous titles? Just because? The close distance between DC and Boston leads me to believe that there is going to be some overlapping occurring, mainly in characters, which can allow them to tell a condensed story (rather than a fill in the blank scenario much like Skyrim's 200 year leap into the 4th era).

Lostpony above also puts it into better words than I ever can.