Tis the week before E3, with leaks as far as the eye can see, and this year has been a real record-breaker when it comes to the unofficial reveals.
Bethesda has tried to get ahead of the game by announcing two of its biggest titles in advance of the convention, but even the RPG king isn't safe from a leak or two, first with Rage 2 and now, potentially, Fallout 76, its curious spin-off to the apocalyptic RPG franchise.
Here's the thing, though; two images showing potential Fallout 76 release dates have surfaced on the internet, but neither corroborates with the other, even if they both suggest that the game will be releasing very, very soon.
The first comes via Resetera, and shows a blurry photo of some kind of promotional material bearing the tagline "Rebuild the Wasteland" (very much in keeping with reports of the game being a multiplayer crafting-survival experience), alongside a release date of July 31, 2018.
This would make sense, seeing how Amazon originally featured the very same release date on its official Fallout 76 product listing, and all of Bethesda's merch for the game is scheduled to release around late June, just one month before this supposed launch period.
But, but, but... the plot thickens when you check out this second leak from Reddit, which appears to show a screenshot from Fallout 76's upcoming E3 trailer. Not only is the "Our Future Begins" tagline different to the first (albeit the same one seen from the original reveal teaser), but this release date suggests the game will be releasing on July 6 instead. That's over three weeks earlier than the July 31 launch day shown in the previous image.
Ok, so, there's three possibilities here. Either both of these "leaks" are completely fake, and it turns out Fallout 76 isn't coming out in July at all. Alternatively (and more realistically) only one of these images is accurate, and my money would be on the former photo with the July 31 date, given what we've seen from Amazon so far.
Or, and this is very much a personal pipe dream, both leaks are correct, with one showing the general release date for PC and consoles, and the other revealing the delayed launch window for Nintendo Switch. It seems implausible, I know, but Bethesda has proved its investment in Ninty's new consoles over the last year, so a Fallout 76 port isn't out of the realm of possibility.
In any case, we'll probably hear the truth from the horse's own mouth at Bethesda's E3 2018 conference on Sunday evening, so Fallout fans ought to make sure to tune in then.
For more E3 news, head over to our list of the biggest E3 2018 games that we know about so far, and see what's worth getting excited about for the week ahead!
