After many grueling days of morse codes and ciphers, Bethesda posted on twitter:

After this tweet, the thesurvivor2299.com displayed a "Please Standby" message with a morse code of PSE AS, or Please Standby.

Approximately 15 minutes ago, the thesurvivor2299.com updated.

The message was "THAT'S IT TUNNEL SNAKES " followed by an embedded Rick Roll video.

After about five minutes, the video changed to the classic "Tunnel Snakes Rule!" video.

Some hope that the site is hacked. But most of us have accepted the reality that it was all a very elaborate hoax. Thus ends a short lived and much hyped arg. GG folks.

Edit: the website now has the message: Special thanks to /r/Fallout the most amazing community on reddit.

I, for one, am wholly unsurprised.

But I want to believe

Good thing I was never that invested in this. I imagine that some people are going to be sorely disappointed, though.

Is the thepropheteer.com a hoax too? I'm a bit lost on this whole ARG thing, I am kinda bummed it isn't real. ARGs need to make a comeback.

The general sentiment on Reddit is really sad. People are acting like their entire family just died and want to lynch whoever put the 2299 thing together.

I say mad props to whatever individual/team made it happen. I haven't had such a good time with Fallout in years.

Yep.

Glad I stayed convinced it was a hoax from the beginning. I'm simply going to do what that tweet says and wait until an official announcement.

Also, tunnel snakes suck.

Elaborate cover up. Feel free to remember I said that.

@mariachimacabre:
Dang it! At least, they have a cool song playing now.

What?! No! The Tunnel Snakes rule. 2cool4schoolz.

If anything, this will tell Bethesda that there will be a lot of excitement when they finally do announce something on Fallout 4.

As someone who barely had any interest in this? ...I'm laughing a little. I know I shouldn't, I would be livid if this were Metroid we were talking about, but part of me still wants to snicker a bit.

OR IS IT!?!?!?

Well shit...

Hoax or elaborate red herring?!

If this is a hoax then its the best goddamn hoax I've ever seen. The stuff they had to do to get this working... Somebody has WAAAY too much time on their hands..

I'm kinda bummed, honestly.

Obvious phishing site is obvious.Maybe? I hope you guys have at least two-step password protections on your Google accounts.

PSA: IFyou don’t heAr it through an officiaLchanneLlike this, assume all rumOrs and specUlaTion are false.

It is right there in front of you.

@gorillamopena: ofcourse! You are a genius!

Is it Half-Life 3, then?

Well, I came out on top here. I had a pretty strong feeling it was total bullshit from the start. And giving it is the internet, I assumed that feeling was correct. But, I got to see this sick Tunnel Snakes video for the first time because of all this. So.

TUNNEL SNAKES RULE.

Shame. I was actually excited about the prospect of a new Fallout.

Sorely disappointed is.. putting it lightly. I've seen death threats being slung around already.

Yeah, that figures.

Oh well, guess I'll go back to forgetting about Fallout again.

Well, there is little doubt that Bethesda is currently working on Fallout 4, this whole thing was really only a matter of when it gets announced. We'll probably hear about it by next E3 at the latest.

Ah, that's brilliant. I have to commend them on their fairly believable hoax.

Not sure why people are getting so upset. Bethesda will make a Fallout 4 eventually, just have some patience.

Well, I always thought this was much more likely to be a fan project than anything else, but the initial website was pretty cool. It's kind of lame that they just threw up their hands, posted that YouTube embed joke from 5 years ago, and considered their audience "trolled". Even as a practical joke, that's about as lazy as it gets.

I think I'm more disappointed that this guy ended off such an elaborate ruse so juvenile.

http://thesurvivor2299.com/fuckyou.php

Man, whoever made this site is the worst kind of person.

We knew this was a hoax from the very beginning. The domain registration and everything was clearly not from Bethesda. People getting their hopes up over this deserve to get their dreams crushed.

I am very put out.

With my [thepropheteer.com] graphics and Survivor2299's coding, we might actually make a half-decent game... or at least pretend to make one

So... was it just a coincidence that two hoaxes came up around the same time?

What does that mean?

I'm equal parts disappointed and amused.

Keep the dream alive!

At least this made me want to play through the old Fallout games again. I'm content with that.

Whilst it said the domain was registered by Bethesda, the details for the domain name registration and hosting was hugely suspicious. I don't remember the exact details, but I believe it didn't use their normal registrar, it didn't have their correct contact details and it was hosted on some weird norwegian host (and Bethesda/Zenimax don't even have a norwegian office). Everything about it screamed that it was a hoax, and this information was widely available on the internet.

I see, thanks for the details.