People seem to have this assumption that because they said 200 years later, that they must be rounding up or down. If they had said 201 years or 199 years, we wouldn't be having this discussion. So, why are we making an exception for 200 years?

That's not consistent with the Robobrain saying "202.3 years behind schedule" in Vault 112.

It's worth noting what TheDrunkenNord mentioned regarding Pete Hine's interview. 200 years later on the same day the bombs fell.

Even with what Bethesda has said, they can still tell the story over the span of 10 years with certain quests moving the timeline ever onward.

If the paleontologist is a robot, I imagine he would. The timeline of the game doesn't matter at all, to be honest. It doesn't hurt any of the theorycrafting that has been done with respect to the potential story.

But, for what it's worth the strongest evidence we have points to 200 years.

Am I the only one that while reading the OP was hoping the conclusion would be something like... "And therefore the Protagonist's favorite color is blue!"

Funny you should say that. When you consider the jumpsuit that our protag picks up before leaving the vault...

Didn't Pete Hines confirm in an interview that it was exactly 200 years after the bombs dropped?

Source: https://youtu.be/rRh5D6UecR0?t=11m36s

Again, what both Pete and Todd have said about the timeline could either be intended to be taken literally or could just be an approximation. In other words to mean that we wake up around 200 years later. This is similar to the way they have presented us as being the sole survivor of vault 111. It's basically just sleight-of-hand.

Consider the possible benefits of Bethesda withholding the exact date at this stage. If they just came out and said, "you wake up 208 years later", or "Fallout 4 is set a few years after the events of New Vegas", then we would know for definite that the game would be set after both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. But at the moment, they haven't confirmed this. If they said, "and then you wake up in the year 2277, 200 years after the bombs fell", then that would be a very specific statement. But the fact is, they have been very vague in order to keep certain ideas well and truly within the realm of speculation. And what this really means is that the events of the two previous games will likely play a huge role in the storyline of Fallout 4.

I think the 200 years is literally 200 years dead on. I think maybe in the vault nothing went horribly wrong to wake up people from a stasis, I think they were woken up by other people who somehow either came into the vault or by someone or some kind of robot in the vault for some reason (most likely some form of experiment) who had been there all along watching over making sure it is all going smoothly. For some reason our character wasn't woken up, but the stasis machine was set for a sleep of 200 years, so after those 200 years he finally wakes up and is free to wander around.

To reactions here, first; Codsworth is programmed with the worst humor chip in the universe, so him saying 200 could be a bad joke on his part. As gkk7z said in the next quote, the option to ask "200 years?" may allow Codsworth to awnser with the exact time.

Then onto the next, pertaining to the dinosaur reference, aswell as the interview here; http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/editorials/interviews/7500-Feargus-Urquhart-Comes-Home.2

At the verry end of that interview he sproutc something of it being between 20 to 100 years after FO3 i think, however the Dino reference you made is a bit iffy. 78.497 years in comparison to 65 million years is like the size difference of a ant to a human. The 70.000 is thus as good as negligible in the greater picture. But 20 to 100 years on a mere 200 years is verry obvious and way to much difference. While i can see 8 years being done, anything more then that, and the constant rounding down to 200 is just stupid on BGS part.

And this is exactly why I think that 208 years would fit perfectly within the constraints of Bethesda's own methodology. To quote Feargus Urquhart directly from the interview (with reference to Fallout New Vegas):

"We [also] talked a lot about when it should occur in the timeline. Originally, we thought that it didn't take place after Fallout 3 and that it took place between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. When Bethesda thinks about their worlds, they always want to be pressing forward. So every game just moves the timeline forward. That's one of the things they said "No," and that's why it takes place years after Fallout 3."

This quote suggests that Bethesda most certainly would not go against this philosophy without a very good reason, such as setting the entire game during pre-war. But seeing as it is set 'at least' 200 years later, we can pretty much assume that this will be after the previous game in the series, namely Fallout New Vegas, which was set in 2281.

EDIT: the above mentioned quote is also referenced earlier in this thread.

As has already been said before: Todd Howard explicitly said the game takes place on the date the bombs fell, 200 years later.

Your forgetting that was a couple of years ago. Bethesda may have changed there minds on that topic. Heck technically they did EXACTLY that by starting the game just before the bombs fell, and unless the guy who did Three dog was lying, they did talk to him about doing thee dog again but changed there mind on that forvwhatever reason. Again, Betesda showing they can change there mind on things.....

As for when in Fallout s timeline the game starts, honestly who realy gives a [censored]. Having it exactly 200 years post nukes will have the exact same effect as setting it a full generatin or more later of keeping the DC characters in DC, heck they can even reuse three dogs F3 broadcasts unchanged to give the " Cannon" ending just throw in static and distortin to give it the effect of a long distance reception.

E3 was a week and a half ago, not two years. Look through the vids from E3 - it is clearly said "on the date the bombs fell - 200 years later". There wasn't even any official confirmatin from Bethesda about Fallout 4 two years ago.

I think they consider the events in New Vegas to be far enough away they don't have to worry about stepping on them.

But the events at the Capital Wasteland are close enough that you would hear about them.

Having the Lone Survivor leave a couple of months after the Lone Wanderer gives the Lone Wanderer enough time to complete his journey, but still have elements like Dr Li going to the Institute and appear in Fallout 4.

They did say in a Fallout related interview, from a while back (In relation to setting a fallout game in the past, ie. pre-war or before fallout 3)

I can't remember the link, but the interviewee said, from memory:

"In our games, Bethesda are always going forward."

I take that to mean that they wouldn't set another game before Fallout New Vegas, only after.

They also claimed Skyrim would be a reboot of the TES series, something it wasn't.

Where are people getting this quote from?

During the E3 demo, Todd makes two separate quotes:

1. Just before first part of the tutorial: "And that last image is really important, because one of the great things about Fallout is the world that existed before the bombs fell. And that is where our game starts. On a beautiful Saturday morning, with the threat of nuclear war looming."

2. Just before the next section: "But you do survive and get lowered into the vault. Events transpire, but you then emerge 200 years later, as the sole survivor of vault 111."

At no time does he ever say "on the day the bombs fell - 200 years later", which would actually imply something totally different.

Would it even matter if he did? I mean that is the exact quote from Pete Hines regarding the timeline and you have already dismissed that (not that it is a bad thing, hell you might be right for all we know).

It's a mismatch of interviewees. Pete Hines stated this.

https://youtu.be/rRh5D6UecR0?t=11m51s.

Im curious, but if Pete and Todd had said 201 years would the date still be under discussion? Note that Pete and Todd don't say "we emerge from the vault around 200 years later."

Fallout 2 took place around 30 years before Fallout 3 so it also fits the timeline. Also, Bethesda has pushed the timeline forward before within a narrative. There were two weeks of time between the events of "Take it back" and the Brotherhood of Steel DLC. Additionally, it takes the player one month just to make the trip in the Point Lookout DLC. It's very likely that the story of Fallout 4 starts in 2277, but is told over a period of several years which is why they're very tight lipped about when the games starts and stops. Granted, the time moving forward never affected the narrative majorly, it's possible that this time around we'll be seeing actual developments based on our choices and actions.

See above.

This is just grasping at straws to be honest. A half life fan could conclude that the lone survivor's vault number is a nod towards Half Life 3. 1+1+1 = 3. Half life 3 confirmed

If either of them had said 201 years then no, as this is a very specific number. But they didn't.

Look at the timeframe mentioned in http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26041-proof-confirmed-of-400yearold-fruitstacking-problem.html#.VZOL-vlQ3oC article. Notice that the article specifically mentions a 400-year-old problem, whereas the actual dates are 403 years apart. This would still have been a valid representation if the difference had been, for example, 408 years, or even 417 years. Also note that this has been posted on a scientific website, implying a greater level of accuracy and verification than most sites. Interestingly, the article later mentions a '300 page document' that took 12 researchers 4 years to verify. Again, do you really think that this would have been exactly 300 pages long? And that the researchers spent 4 years to the day checking it? Of course not. And so it stands to reason that Todd/Pete could also be 'rounding up' or 'rounding down' the exact time since the great war.

A very interesting point. Note that you rounded the actual difference of 36 years and 23 days between start dates, as verified by the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline#2241, to 'around 30 years'. Now, if this had in fact been slightly less, say 32 years, then you could just as easily have said '30 years' for your statement to be correct. But you used the word 'around', meaning 'approximately', due to the actual timeframe being midway between 30 and 40 years. Based on this, I am fairly confident that my suggested timeframe of 208 years still stands.

The release date for Skyrim was 11.11.11, which if we 'condense down' can easily be made to read "1.1.1". Also, the actual release date of Fallout 4 is (in US notation) 11.10.15, which again, if we take the first digits only, gives us "1.1.1". This second example may possibly even be seen at the end of whatever new trailer we are shown closer to release, most likely morphing the number 111 into the release date itself. Finally, the use of "111" as the number of the vault in Fallout 4 could be a reference to the 3 main protagonists in Bethesda's 3 Fallout titles, namely the Lone Wanderer, the Courier, and the Sole Survivor. As in 1+1+1 = 3.

Or, it simply was a free number within the scope of 114 vaults built...

What a conspiranoia!!

Maybe the numbers don't mean anything, but I was just demonstrating a point that until we have much more specific info, the dates are fully open to interpretation. I'm not saying that the game won't be set exactly 200 years later, but I am saying that there are also other valid possibilities

Any theories as to how Galaxy News Network fits into it? A derivative of ol GNR? Or was this the parent company of GNR revitalized post war.

the Vault numbers have occasionally meant something in game.....

13 was Jinxed

3 had just 3 areas you could explore

69 is self explanatory and 68 being right next to it number wise is also fairly obvious...

both 101 and 111 seem to match the binary number for the actual game in sequence