Kittens were shown a couple times during the E3 presentation... so, there very well might be kittens in Fallout 4, otherwise why spend time doing artwork for them and include it during your large reveal presentation.

Here... in upper right... https://youtu.be/D5esyZPt5Jo?t=261

(with dogs in lower left)

Also... in upper right... https://youtu.be/D5esyZPt5Jo?t=266

I think the official term is Easter Egg

I thought that odd too as Mr. House made it sound like cats were extinct. Unless they are gonna do a Blade Runner homage and have artificial animals.

When did he hint at that?

So looks like we'll be getting a kitten DLC.

Apparently after you kill the Boomers:

Maybe there will be Synthetic kittehz!

Cats are nuts as is, don't want see what happens when a robo-kitteh gets glitched.

Cats only died out because they where hunted by humans But this was on the west coast so perhaps they didn't eat them in Boston or Perhaps the Institute brought the back?

Bahahahaha!! Maybe that's why they would make good enemies and attack on sight! Kittens glitch out and fight with all the fury of a machine not holding back!

Perhaps the institute, had/has cloning capabilities?

Their scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they never stopped to think that they should. I mean, kittens and man, two species separated by 200 years of post-nuclear evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?

They're for a scavenger hunt where you track down posters of cats.. after you find all 1000 posters you can trade them in for a readable Cat's Paw magazine.

I think a big reason that cats being extinct in the lore is that there wasn't a good way to give gameplay to a housecat that wasn't just a straight pet. Im not sure if anyone here remembers that one mod for cats in Morrowind, but all they really did was wander around on the floor and make meows. Now maybe a mutated cat with the new tech could be moving around city scenes and be using poison bites while lunging onto the PC, but would a creature that small still be a fun opponent to fight, or would it just be annoying to try and shoot such a small and agile target? The mole rats seem a bit smaller and more agile this time around, maybe that is a precursor to mutant cats. But yeah, just because there's concept art of something doesnt mean its in the final product. There's a whole bunch of cool things that good old Adam drew for Fallout 3, but could not be realized with the technology on hand. Anyone remember the mole rat bigger than a car that was being used as a mount? That didn't make it in, and it could be the same with the kittens.

Forget crazy robo-kitteh...

I never want to see a crazy "Death Kitteh", now that's a one shot!!!

Maybe you could shoot kittens with your rock-it-launcher....

I wish i could have a cat pet instead of the dog... and no i dont mean a silly house cat... i was thinking more like a jaguar/panther kinda cat...

Or they could be a new energy weapon: http://www.hulu.com/watch/209651

we got a dog gun in NV maybe will get a cat gun in FO4.

Or a ghoul gun

Cat's are extinct in the post-apocalyptic world.

Bringing them back means that Bethesda are breaking lore.

I doubt it, but I would love to see them modded in as settlement pets.

There could be a vault where crazy cat man like me smuggled 10 cats in and left everyone else outside to burn in nuclear fire. Over the years i made a self feeding/ self watering machine so the cats would never starve or get thirsty.

200 years pass and a random raider finds and opens the vault, he gets swarmed by thousands of cats and they leave behind a eaten corpse kind of like piranhas. Now the cats go roaming the wasteland For guns and trinkets and then return to the cat vault to eat and make more kitties.

Make it happen bethesda!

Except they wouldn't come back because... they're cats, they do what they want! Lol