Game Company Actually Reveals New Game!

Turns out, when given the rare opportunity, a new game tease/reveal can be pretty neat. Bethesda not only was able to keep the lid screwed tight on the newly announced Fallout 76, but were able to hog headlines this week as a lead-in to their upcoming E3 Showcase the night of June 10th. Bethesda flipped the on switch for their Twitch channel Tuesday morning only showing a Vault Boy statue with “Please Stand By” on a screen in the background.

The live feed stayed active for about 24 hours with various random encounters from staffers and subtle changes with objects appearing and disappearing leaving the around 100,000 viewers (give or take several thousand at different times) to debate and theorize what the upcoming announcement would entail. After the roughly 24 hours were over Todd Howard appeared on screen and told the remaining Twitch viewers they had waited long enough leading to a short teaser for Fallout 76, a game they will most certainly detail further on June 10th. This was one of the most interesting strategies to a game reveal I can recall (though Bethesda has used the “Please Stand By” for Fallout news before) and it took little effort and resources from Bethesda’s part to execute. The time from the Twitch stream starting to the actual trailer playing gave fans enough time to talk amongst one another theorizing on remakes or Switch ports or a new game in the vein of Fallout: New Vegas being the “obvious” announcement and it provided Bethesda and Fallout a boost as we go charging into E3. Perhaps they did this because they knew or feared word was about to get out during leak season, or perhaps this was the plan all along. Either way, it worked and worked well to help build anticipation for their Sunday showcase as people want to know more about this still relatively unknown project as well as the rest of Bethesda’s slate. I think Bethesda deserves a kudos for this one, the game may not be what fans are looking for, but the reveal was a fun social experience leaving fans guessing at what was coming.