When Fallout 4 Fooled the World

I can't believe such cruel people exist may God have mercy on that monster Soul let it be known that on 126 2013 my jimmies were violently and permanently rustled he will burn I want his skull on a plate when's the last time you've been truly excited for something and I don't mean the kind of excited like oh I'm getting a promotion excited or I'm having a baby excited that ain't exciting babies just sit there and do nothing mooching off your money bunch of freeloaders no I mean the kind of excitement that captures your soul that kind of excitement that supersedes everything else in life the story I'm about to tell you is one filled with passion Brotherhood and a betrayal so devastating it nearly tore apart an entire Community this is the tale of a little website called the Survivor 2299 [Music] it's November 2013 half the world is getting only a spoonful of some free shadoo on this new app called Vine while the other half is amassing their Collective brain power to figure out what the fox says ring a ding ding baby this year however would produce something entirely different a cryptic website appears and it's called the Survivor 2299 the website is sparse with content simply feed featuring a countdown timer a morse code message and eventually the addition of the vault tech logo from The Fallout franchise now surely something so oddly specific and esoteric couldn't draw the attention of anyone right right the survivor2 okay let's pump the brakes real quick because there's something you got to know about Bethesda fans back in 2013 they had come to expect something that we haven't gotten from Modern Bethesda in a long time consistent releases and consistent quality in 2013 if you were an avid fan of bethesda's Flagship franchises the Elder fall scroll out this was what you had come to expect from them in about 10 [Music] years Bethesda releases more wind despite some clunkiness by modern standards [Music] many still regarded as one of the best in the Elder Scrolls franchise the same year we get another expansion from warwind tribunal Banger the next year we get another expansion pack that lets you be a werewolf s tier four years later another Elder Scrolls installment Oblivion this game lets you make like this Banger same year Oblivion gets an expansion Knights of the nine which is then closely followed up by Shivering Isles jeez for everyone double Banger next big drop we get let me just check my notes Ducati Moto for the DS wait what 2008 Bethesda dips their little toeses into that new IP they bought and released Fallout 3 a great game that introduces Millions to the Fallout franchise and is frankly just plain old fun to play God I hope you ain't one of those psychotic quiet types Banger a year after Fallout 3's release Todd birs five DLC packs of albeit varying quality but still providing hours more content 2010 bethesda's chained up prisoner in the shed out back Obsidian Entertainment eeks out Fallout New Vegas under immense time constraints a buggy release at first but they don't patch out the part where you can bang the robot so home run for me Obsidian then drops some more DLC packs in the following months adding some extra icing on top of that yummy New Vegas cake only about 2 months later Bethesda released their Little Indie gain um you might have heard of it oh what's it called uh oh yeah Brink Skyrim drops in late 2011 birth rates around the world collapse as anyone aged 14 to 35 was too busy Googling how to find amulets of Mara so they could romance Aya Banger okay wait hold on I meant the score not like that not like that by 2013 this was what Elder fall scroll out fans had come to expect of bethesda's Mainline releases compare this to Modern Bethesda will we got Skyrim Skyrim Skyrim sky crappy Elder schools6 microid paid PA over aight for the Elders Scroll now obviously Bethesda was not perfect during this era there were certainly some minor cracks shown that would later become gaping holes point is Bethesda in the early 2000s wasn't missing and the fan expectation grew higher and higher back to 2013 it had been a whopping three years since the last installment of the Fallout franchise and the fans were getting a little antsy how about you just give me theing game and not try to turn this series into valve and half life three I don't want to wait like 10 years for this game now that is irony nearly 3 years of radio Silence from Bethesda on the Fallout front desperation was setting in and fans clung on to any sign of Hope anything and everything was a sign of Fallout 4 hey guys I just saw this Bethesda employee get dumped by his girlfriend at a coffee shop today could this be Fallout let's go I was doing when I played Ultima and what we we can do wait a second how many fingers did he hold oh my God what's that your 4-year-old son Bell down the steps you don't think major Publications felt the dry spell too to try and cash in on the Fallout 4 hype they basically just made [ __ ] up my favorite is this article from IGN where their only source was just some guy on Reddit and his Source was trust me bro all the community needed was a single match to ignite something big now where were we right spooky new website some beeping and a timer the site is published November 13th 2013 with the aformentioned features despite the Intriguing nature of the Survivor 2299 it goes widely unnoticed by the world for like 6 hours cuz the next day The Fallout Community had already sniffed out another kernel of hope Gary the match had been lit a mere 2 days after the Survivor 2299 is live The Fallout Community is Ablaze with speculation see Not only was this website registered by Bethesda the timer was scheduled to hit zero on December 11th 2013 and that Morse code message well let me see if I can translate it for you guys real quick mhm okay oh I see okay got it yeah it was a bunch ofing beeping the code was transmitting the same date December 11th 2013 why was this date so important December 11th hm what's on December 11th could it be the anniversary of the Statue of Westminster in Canada no no Bethesda hates Canada can't be that the Fallout Community scratched their heads and crunch some numbers ladies and gentlemen we got a lead well well it just so happens that the Video Game Awards were only a few days before cross triangulate reverse image reference the logo in the website and it all made sense Bethesda was going to announce Fallout 4 at the Video Game Awards this is it [ __ ] I'll aboard the Fallout 4 hype train [Music] there were of course some Skeptics however they were no match for the ensuing hype train people thought this could be some sort of complex ARG like the I love bees campaign for Halo 2 maybe it was a gorilla style marketing strategy perhaps it was some man's plea for help from Todd Howard's basement you smell good boy or maybe just maybe it was Fallout 4 we truly had no idea what this was the Survivor 2299 and its current state alone was enough to make the average Fallout fan Vats in his pants but this dear viewer was merely the beginning it's now November 21st a little over a week since the site was published and in that time the Fallout sleuths did some sleuthing they had Unearthed a major breakthrough in the Survivor 2299 case there had been a leaked song that was rumored to be in Fallout 4 all relate to something that is new song huh this could be h huge this could give us so many hints let's give it a [Music] [Applause] listen stop it sounded legit too a dramatic tune lamenting the end of the world followed by a booming orchestral score I'll link it in the description if you're curious it was a perfect fit for Fallout 4 soundtrack almost too perfect yeah it turns out the main backing of this song was a rendition of the Super Mario World castle theme God nothing I could write would ever be funnier than that but fear not dear viewer the mystery was not dead yet wake up Timmy dad I thought I thought you didn't get custody till Monday the Survivor 2299 just dropped new codes you haven't you haven't been paying for child support have you a different Morse code message it seemed to be transmitting from a radio station in Fallout 3 perhaps this could be a hint at our main character of Fallout 4 fans theorized all right well I know I said theorized to make it sound fancy but looked more like this a new text Banner appears asking visitors to reserve your future home today and it listed a set of numbers ignoring the fact that 10 years ago the prospect of having to reserve the chance to actually own your home wasn't a distant fantasy fans knew this had to be connected to Fallout 4 reserve your family spot in a state-of-the-art underground Vault today sign up now and prepare for the future those numbers next to the text well well they weren't just any numbers if you entered those numbers in order on a phone keypad it actually let you speak to another person you know there really should be a name for these numbers instantly the phone line is jammed with thousands of callers most received the dreaded we're sorry you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service but for the Chosen Few they heard this unsettling message I got lotion on my right now I'm just stroking sorry I couldn't resist [Music] if the Survivor 2299 in its original state wasn't enough to convince some of the Skeptics well I think it's safe to say that by now every Vault dweller gave each other a brief glance showed an awkward smile because deep down we all knew this was legit site registered to vinx media Incorporated appears to hint at a potential Fallout reveal coming on December 11th 2013 testing the waters for the Survivor 2299 website that's been going viral basically in the past about week or so we've had a lot of mors codes throughout the Survivor 2299 been released and a lot of people have been translating them if you didn't know on the Survivor 2299 website there's a new Mar code release each day and they're usually translated within that same day the mysterious nature surrounding the Survivor 2299 and its status as some sort of augmented reality game certainly fan the Flames of the Fallout Community ironically though the one thing that poured gasoline on this hype bonfire was Bethesda themselves because Bethesda said nothing and for the community their silence was compliance I mean it makes sense right by this point the website had been registered under Bethesda it was heavily referencing previous Fallout titles and now you have major gaming Publications that were covering it if it was all a hoax then why hadn't Bethesda killed it already the only conclusion that we could draw was this was real and every single day Bethesda remains silent Our Hope grew [Music] stronger The Fallout Community is now all hands on deck a united front to uncover whatever with USDA had to sh it out next everyone was doing their part I don't care if you got to work three jobs to support your family sit down and translate these Morse codes [ __ ] and just in time too because the Survivor 2299 threw us another curveball upon visitation you're greeted with this what is it you might ask well apparently it's a Caesar shift Cipher pizza pizza now to me this just looks like someone directly translating Mongolian throat singing but for those of us without incurable brain rot it translated to another clue about our precious Fallout 4 the message references a place called The Institute wait a minute wasn't The Institute referenced in that one side quest in Fallout 3 isn't it in like Boston or something indeed it was my fellow Americans we got us the new location of Fallout 4 but do not go gentle into that good night just yet new Cipher new code this one is a vi vi virgin Vier Cipher using some of the context from this Cipher as well as the new information from these new Morse codes and we get this message that seems to be mentioning something called the Quin Reservoir now maybe Bethesda are just big fans of Fish and Wildlife reservoirs or maybe it's the largest inland body of water in Massachusetts and you know what else is in Massachusetts Boston and you know what's in Boston a lot of drunk people no I'm just kidding The Institute is in Boston with the mystery unraveling every single day it's at this point where the Fallout Community grew weary of this slow trickle of information we needed to take action and start digging into this site and dig we did some redditors tried Brute Force cycling the Survivor 2299 Doc's URL which if you don't know what that means it means they essentially entered seven-digit number combinations and and went through every single one to see if anything would match and I thought editing was hard other redditors found that the version of engine X the site was running on was the exact same version bethesda's official blog site was running on nice try Bethesda you're going to have to try a little harder to trick us Fallout fans we don't even understand what our games are about I just want to hop in real quick and say that when the Survivor 2299 dropped I was like a freshman in high school with no Riz and literally no other time commitments besides school even though I was so invested in this website there were people doing things that made me question how much free time people had so if a dumbass Fallout obsessed high school or is questioning how much time you have then you know this is going to go off the rails tin foil hat time children new code drops this one's a doozy because it's referencing a specific radio frequency I think you know where this is going this led Fallout fans from the Pirate Radio forums to actually go out and tune into the unregistered and legally dubious radio Transmissions upon tuning in the following transmission was played [Music] wait a second those beeps at the end of the transmission don't they kind of sound like when you press a sequence of numbers on a phone to send a message they really got to get a better name for that by matching up the tones pressed on the phone dial it's spelled I'm secure as the days go by we're now hearing news about this so-called Institute being sealed and a vault near the Quabbin Reservoir breaching the puzzle pieces were fitting together breaking news editors in the URL Brute Force Department have made a shocking Discovery by typing in the following URL we find this warning better yet to find the real message you had to highlight the entire page to find an invisible Cipher which translates to they don't know what's coming it's a key to the great game am I on a watch list what the [ __ ] here's what we've pieced from Bethesda so far Fallout 4 is in Boston it involves a place called The Institute the protagonist or potential NPC related to the protagonist survived some catastrophe and Bethesda has killed it with this marketing I mean oh my god dude this is [Music] crazy only one week away until this timer hits zero to say that people were hyped about the Survivor 2299 would be the understatement of the 23rd Century every gaming Outlet was talking about it entire blogs and Facebook pages were dedicated to cracking every minute detail there were dozens of YouTube videos doing daily updates on the smallest changes the Fallout subreddit had a 21p part hype Mega thread this guy made an entire map based off the shreds of information this guy was so excited he [ __ ] his pants and so did these guys speaking of suar pants today's sponsor is gamer Subs just kidding in the midst of this fever pitch we receive one final message to decipher it and you know I didn't make this up cuz it's actually funny you had to enter in the year in which the Berkeley building was completed which by the way if you didn't know the Berkeley building is one of the tallest buildings in Boston of course and it's here the final message is laid out Welcome to The Institute the only safe place in the world oh my God Fallout 4 God I just want to find Fallout 4 I going to eject it into my veins I'm going to literally bleed Fallout 4 I cannot [Applause] wait it needs to be December 11th right now who the hell is tweeting this early what what everyone instantly rushed back to the Survivor 2299 and and what they saw I can only describe as terrifying tunnel snakes rule with the tunnel snakes that's us and we rule rule tunnel snakes rule with the tunnel snakes that's us tunnel snakes rule with the tunnel snakes that's us and we Ru ru [Music] with [Music] telake are you kidding me all that time wasted 4 weeks of my life gone that's it I I I could have been outside I could have been traveling the world I could have been talking to actual people but no instead I spent my entire life for the past 4 weeks researching the fing Quin Reservoir are you kidding me it's over Bethesda doubled down and confirmed that this whole thing was all a troll needless to say the Fallout in Greater Gaming Community was not happy all this translating after me coming home after college classes where I could be doing homework which I have been doing but I could be doing homework right away but I'm going to instead slave over mying computer and try to translate a bunch of codes for you guys the once blossoming hype threads became a disappointment party some wanted blood that one didn't age too well some were in denial but most of us just wanted Fallout 4 the worst part of this whole thing was when Bethesda confirmed it was all fake the original message that played was an actual Rick Roll which was then changed to a rather ton deaf message congratulating The Fallout community that the real Fallout for was the friends we made along the way is a load of barnacles before it was then changed to the tunnel snakes it felt like there was no one to blame yet everyone was to blame why didn't we know sooner how could this have happened we're smarter than this I mean personally the fact that ignan reported this before all the hype zenmax registered its other games domains for Wolfenstein and the Elder Scrolls through corporate domains Incorporated while the Survivor 2299 was registered with GoDaddy that probably should have been the first red flag but you know hey what do I know maybe Todd Howard likes registering sites with Go Daddy and what about the Mastermind behind this troll you would think the Creator behind the Survivor 2299 would want to lay low for a while stew in the mess that he created but if there's one thing around Predator can't resist it's karma an AMA goes live titled hello I'm the guy behind the hoax ask me anything no the mods immediately give him the flare villain of the Wast with maximum negative Karma some people use this chance to scream into the void but for the most part we just wanted to know why after all the level of detail and effort put into this was admittedly oppressive well it turns out he spent around $1,000 to keep the site up and running and the only reason he stopped is because Bethesda sent him AIS and assist but that still didn't answer our most burning question why did he do it for Fallout 4 okay guy The Fallout Community paid their respects and we all moved on with our lives As Time marched on the dust slowly collected on the Survivor 2299 there were a few whimpers of life here in there at one point the domain redirected you to bethesda's homepage a few months later there's Rumblings of a potential Enclave mod and in fact the site is still running today as a fan forum but after the hoax no one cared the hype Train derailed long ago and all that was left were memories of what could have been but it wasn't all doom and gloom despite the pain felt by the community despite the countless hours of work deciphering meaningless numbers despite the the catastrophic letdown that was the Survivor 2299 there was still hope and much like a werewolf Hunter's bed sheets there's always a silver lining remember this guy from earlier well because of his coverage of the hoax his channel experienced tremendous growth and helped further his career as a YouTuber today Mr Matty play sits at well over 500,000 subscribers I've been dying to make YouTube a full-time thing and I thought finally here's the point where I can grow and start building up and I was I got about 500 subscribers in the past week I was getting tons of views tons of comments just talking with you guys all the time the Fallout Community was as United as it has been in a long time during the Survivor 2299 for just a few weeks it felt like everyone put aside their respective opinions and just wanted to share their Collective excitement there was no complaining about how Fallout New Vegas was better cuz it's yellow and Fallout 3 sucked cuz it was green we all just wanted Fallout 4 and because of this The Fallout subreddit had a massive surge of traffic as new fans joined even though it was only for a brief time the Fallout Community actually felt like well a community and what about Fallout 4 the Nexus point for this entire Saga well in one final Act of cruel irony that I can only describe as feeling bizarrely personal Bethesda announced the real Fallout 4 with get this another countdown timer hey pal you just blowing from stupid Town seeing another timer so soon after the Survivor 2299 most Fallout fans had a flight or fight response eventually though it was confirmed to be real and Fallout 4 did release strangely enough a lot of what the Survivor 2299 predicted was actually right it was set in Boston The Institute did play a major role and the protagonist was called the sole survivor but did Fallout 4 live up to all this hype all this speculation years of anticipation I mean I I liked it but let's just say that Bethesda Bethesda never changes what engine their game runs on seriously it's been like 20 years hey if you made it this far thanks for watching believe it or not for as long as this video was there was still a lot of detail that I didn't cover if you really want the nitty-gritty of how in depth this really got I highly recommend you check out Matty plays and Yong Yas series on the Survivor 2299 the amount of detail they're covered is insane so check them out and I'm sorry this video took so long had a lot of real life stuff kind of come in the way and honestly the more that I researched this topic the more it kind of got crazier and crazier but I loved it anyway probably my favorite video I've made in a long time so if you liked it follow me for more I'll talk to you guys later peace [Music]

Channel: Default Cheesecake

Views: 731,528

Keywords: Fallout, Gaming, Fallout 4, Fallout TV, fallout 76, fallout 3, fallout new vegas

Id: ct-luh-ec7E

Length: 26min 46sec (1606 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024