If the seal to the lift was opening as they looked up to see the bomb I might be swayed, but everyone on that hill was just kinda looking up at the big orange fireball. It's possible they made it, but I'm gonna go with occams razor and say they're super dead.

Didn't those "leaks" also say Ron Perlman wasn't going to be doing the "War Never Changes" bit? I'll be waiting till after E3 before I believe anything from those sources.

If the lift is pressurised then it could possibly lower at a much faster rate than if it were being raised. This would also make sense due to the urgency involved in escaping a nuclear blast! The speed we see the protagonist rising out of the vault in the trailer is actually moderately fast all things considered.

I still stand by my theory that the guy we see at the time of the blast is the same person at the end of the video. In movies we often see plot devices used, where certain very specific information is presented to us to allow further events to occur in a way that makes sense. The whole build up and specific focus on this one family throughout the trailer would only make sense if they were very significant, and the fact that we don't actually see them being vaporised means that they COULD survive. Or rather, at least one of them could survive, which would give purpose to the rest of the trailer as well as open up possibilities for the main thread of the story.

If all of these speculations are correct it sounds like Fallout 4 is gonna be [censored].

On the other hand, it could make for a far more involved and engaging story than what we have seen before. Throughout the fallout series, we have been given mere glimpses of what happened before the bombs fell. But if any of this turns out to be even close to the final game, not only could we have the opportunity to experience first hand what happened, but we will have a protagonist with a totally unique perspective having lived in both time-lines. That means that any pre-war elements from the main game will be far more important and significant to us as a player than in previous games.

Correct. According to the documents leaked to Kotaku 6 months ago, the PLAYER is the one who gives the whole "War Never Changes" speech.

While I would be super-bummed out if Ron Perlman isn't returning to do the voice-over work, EVERYTHING in the trailer appears in those leaked documents. Including a picture of the Vault Dweller, who looks IDENTICAL to the guy we see over the crib and at the end of the trailer. http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/1993h06hw9hg8png.png Note that the player also mentions having a wife and infant son.

I also really hope they are leaving it open for us to be the wife OR the husband, but you have to admit those leaked documents from Kotaku are batting a 1000 so far.

EDIT: The casting call in the leaked documents mentions both a male and female version of the main character / player. It is also where mention of the cryostasis appears.

This is why I've been saying that there is a lot more to the trailer than many people have realised. I think that the decision to include so much of this in the trailer is a very smart move on Bethesda's part, especially considering their timing. Two weeks before E3, they have confirmed many aspects of the game that were previously leaked, yet there is so much more that we still don't know. They have simply played their hand very well, and no doubt we will be seeing a lot of this further confirmed at E3.

Again, pretty much everything I have suggested in my original post is evidence based. Thank you to LateWhiteRabbit for posting a lot of source material to help corroborate this!

First off, having a somewhat blank slate for your character would be ruined. second, chasing after your kid? Like, we've already looked for our dad, and why would someone break into a vault after so many years to steal a kid? As I've said, I think you're reading too much into a trailer. Sure if they want the series to turn into Far Cry, with a voiced protagonist and little to no character creation and choices, then sure, I guess. But it would piss a lot of people off. And I don't know, there weren't any shots that made it seem like they're the same person, sure they're both white with dark hair, but we totally see the family in the trailer being hit by the blast. I doubt they made it.

Well if Ron Perlmans twitter is anything to go by, I would assume that he was involved in some way.

re: theory that protagonist = Dad.

Um, Dad (& Mom) here has a child => is hetero. This being 2015, being gay will be an option. Yeah, there are ways around that, but it strains things.

The infant, naturally evinces no sixual orientation, so the child being the PC is perfectly plausible.

I hope he is. But it seems pretty obvious from the leaked documents that Bethesda did a casting call for voice actors for both a male and female version of the player character.

Maybe Ron Perlman still narrates the Game Over screens and ending scenarios. Or maybe he still gets a big "War, War Never Changes" speech to open the game, and the player's speech is just echoing that. Again, I really want to hear Ron Perlman doing what he does best again.

Could be. But again, I don't see how we can run around pre-war environments as an infant.

Maybe they'll pull an Assassin's Creed 3, and we'll spend the tutorial and opening during pre-war as Dad, and then switch over to the kid for the actual game.

Love your theory OP. I feel like we're in for a big treat..I too will spend hundreds of hours exploring the wasteland once again.

The whole point of having you in cryostasis is that you could survive for a very long time and not age. All I'm saying is that if your child also survived into the vault, and if they were awakened from cryostasis before you were then they could potentially be the same age as you when you found them. They could even turn out to be the main antagonist without you even knowing that they were still alive, which would be an awesome twist.

With regards to having a blank slate, look all the way back to Morrowind. You were a prisoner, but you could still completely invent yourself in a million different ways. Lets say that in Fallout 4 you were in the military and you were married with a child, the same would still apply. You could still play your character out in any way you like because that's still only one aspect of who you are.

As for the voice acting, this could most certainly be implemented without "breaking" the feel of the game. In all of the previous games you are given a finite number of responses for any given situation. If these options are voiced, will it really be that different?

And as for the likeness to the protagonist, many agree that the facial features are basically identical.

Finally, why would somebody break into a vault and steal a kid? What if it were an android who is programmed to preserve life and is therefore following protocol.

Personally I think the protagonist might be an android. It would explain those flashbacks we saw in the trailer.

Oh OK, so it would basically be

Errrrr, yeah it would, because no matter what character you made he would sound the same. Or you would have limited options.

As for the blank slate, being married with a kid is different from being a prisoner on a ship, a prisoner on a ship implies little to no past except being taken prisoner at some point. A family implies a lot more.

That's true. But it doesn't have to be THAT restricting of a past.

Want to play your character as gay? You can say they were in the closet. I know several gay individuals who got married and had kids before they came out, and our society is a LOT more forgiving now than the pseudo-1950s conservative world of Fallout's 2070s.

Was it a happy marriage? A marriage of convenience? Lots of ways to roleplay it without feeling too shackled IMHO. Especially since it looks like we will get to be either the wife or the husband. Like Dad in Fallout 3, the family will probably change to reflect the character you create.

Well perhaps being married is never confirmed, or even both of you being the actual parents of the child. That would then give us two advlts, one male and one female, who have a baby in their care. This would still allow us to pick either a male or a female protagonist, and would still give us a vested interest in the welfare of the child during the main quest.

Edit: Posted this without having a chance to read previous one above this - similar train of thought.

Just noticed this. Lol

At first I thought you would play the baby but now I'm think there is a second child and the flashbacks are their memory's of life before, they made it to a vault but was only room for one more on the lift so they went and the rest of the family waited till it came back up. The child (you) is put in cryosleep as soon as you're in the vault not knowing your family just died on the surface. you wake decades later and have grown to near advlthood ( the technology is faulty so it just slows ageing not stopping it) find a doctor (probably followers) stood over you wanting you to help them fix the cryo chambers or something as they triggered a wake up protocol when the tried hacking the medical computers but the system is damaged and will only recognise someone on the vaults occupancy list to get to the override.

A good idea, but the only problem with this is the fact that you only ever see one baby in the trailer. Also, if this were the case then they wouldn't have been able to see the rest of their family outside the vault at the time of the blast as we did in the trailer. And there is only one crib in the house, or at least only one that we are aware of.

And if I want a character that was part of a biker gang, robbed banks and did crazy drugs then I totally... oh wait, never mind.

I like to give Beth lots of credit and I'm thinking maybe they have done something a little groundbreaking and made the main world space twice. Once with vegetation and unspoiled structures and object meshes and again with destroyed structures and damaged, dirty objects. They may even have gone as far as to let us play around in that time period with full roam for extended period of time which would allow us to alter some things for the future.

Maybe they lived a double life... Seriously though, there is still a lot of flexibility to do with backstory given the information that we know, or at least can realistically speculate. But there are also clear sensible limitations. For example, you would most certainly not be able to roleplay as the dovahkiin in Fallout 4, but that wouldn't stop you from being creative when choosing the backstory of your character. Given the family oriented nature of the 50s setting as shown in all of the pre-war information we have seen in pretty much all of the games, we can assume a few things - but that doesn't give us a whole picture, but merely a vague starting point. A biker with a family, who is also a criminal. Just saying.

I think it's much more likely that we're playing as the child than the parents. Perhaps the first sequence we play as the parents, during a tutorial of sorts, but then we switch to the child for the rest of the game. Sort of an inverse "The Last of Us" scenario.

It all comes back to the main character being some family pleb though. I feel like just being a vault dweller is easier and better. Having a set past, voiced protagonist and flashbacks would require something Bethesda lacks. Good writing.

But that's still only one interpretation. Look at the Mafia for example. Totally family oriented, but certainly not plebs and highly dangerous to boot. You could technically have said the same thing about Morrowind if you wanted to play as a character who has never been in trouble with the law. Or in Fallout 3 if you wanted to play as someone who was raised by a tribe in the desert and then made their way to the capital wasteland. Without any background information you have no scope to incorporate a story, which is kind of the whole point of role playing. We are given certain parameters to work with, but also enough flexibility to tailor our experience whilst also enjoying the narrative elements.