Firstly, I was pretty excited and didn’t get much sleep last night, so, you know, apologies if I don’t using words good at very some times. Secondly – HOLY FREAKIN’ COW – it’s here. It happened. WE HAVE A TRAILER FOR FALLOUT 4!

I might be getting carried away a bit here (again: see lack of sleep), but for my parent’s generation, there was the moon landing, probably some stuff about some other stuff, but for our generation there was today; the 3rd of June, 2015 – the day when, finally, finally, there was confirmation that Fallout 4 was, like, *totes* happening and that!

The trailer (if you’re one of the two people in the world who hasn’t already seen it) is here:

Fallout 4I know, right!? Obviously, the first thing to note is that it looks genuinely Fallout-ey, but also considerably lusher  – as you’d reasonably expect from a Next-Gen offering. I mean, I love Fallout as much as the next guy, but I’d be the first to admit that the last-gen games weren’t exactly a graphical tour de force. There’s still that retro feel now, and a kind of simplicity to the graphics – but it just looks, and feels, like it’ll be a better visual experience all around. At this point, it appears it’ll be released solely on next-gen and PC, so that’s great news in terms of what we can expect from the graphics and/or size of Fallout 4 – although, admittedly, not such great news if you’ve not yet made the jump to next-gen.

Also, from the trailer – taking the graphics and soundtrack together – it definitely seems like Fallout 4 will continue with the juxtaposition of 1950s Americana and Futuristic wasteland-ey type stuff. That’s largely to be expected given the Fallout universe as it stands, but it’s a very successful motif, and one that makes the games unique – so I’m happy to see it continue. Trying to finish of a nest of Deathclaws just wouldn’t be the same without some old-school crooner providing the backing track, and as somebody who grew up with a ZX Spectrum, I’m all about the beepy-boopy computer terminals and whatnot too.

fallout-4 suitNext, and as rumoured, it very much seems like the game will be set in and around Boston/Massachusetts (now known as “The Commonwealth”). This suggests that the Commonwealth, The Institute, The Railroad – mentioned in previous games – will all feature heavily in Fallout 4. It’s also likely that there’ll be some quirky, fallout-type twists on the history and legend of the region, so expect some degree of riffing on, for example, Tea Parties, Midnight Rides and suchlike. The Railroad bits, in particular, will probably draw heavily on themes of AI/humanity/slavery – so, think Blade Runner with added Pip-Boy 3000.

Also, given the star of the trailer was the Dog, there’s every reason to believe that Fallout 4 will continue – and perhaps expand upon – the companion feature of previous games. I didn’t use it so much – preferring instead to go with the rugged, romantic, going-it-alone approach, but if it is expanded upon in Fallout 4, it could prove an interesting dynamic. Except if the dog dies. If you’re reading Bethesda, for the love of god, please don’t kill the dog!

Elsewhere, there was enough for fans of the Fallout games to recognise, and get excited about. There’s the makeshift towns, mysterious strangers, mutants, cobbled together machinery, armour, and just about everything else Fallout-ey you can think of. Again, that’s to be expected, but to be honest, just seeing it all again was a pretty big thrill for me.

Fallout 4 - strangerWhich brings me to my final point. This was just a “Teaser” ahead of Bethesda’s e3 slot, so there wasn’t too much in the way of actual information – aside from that which I’ve already mentioned, and even that involves a lot of extrapolation on my part. There was no gameplay footage, for example, no actual details of characters, story, etc – and perhaps, more importantly, not even a hint of a release date. Will we still have VATS (please, yes), will there be vehicles (meh!), is there going to be the same, or similar, upgrade system?

This type of stuff (we’ve been promised) will be covered at e3 (June 14th) so we should have a much, much clearer picture after that – including, hopefully, some idea of a release date. However, after years of waiting with absolutely no information, an extra 11 days shouldn’t be too hard to handle by comparison.

Indeed, if you’re looking for an upside, the next few days (plus the time until whatever the release is) should just about give us all time to wrap up our real-world shizzle, sever ties with family and friends, and get ready to fully dive into the world of Fallout 4.

So, you know, every cloud and all that………