That said, it's nowhere near confirmed, either.
I'm wondering now, though, whether there is any mention of racism or homophobia in the Fallout series (beyond some of the stuff said about the Legion, that seemed like it was just childish slander more than anything). I think there's some sexism, especially in the Legion, but I can't seem to remember anyone ever commenting on someones race or sexuality in a negative way.
Another example of homophobia besides what Iceblaster said: Veronica talks about how Father Elijah broke up her relationship with another woman in the BoS because the Brotherhood needed everyone to have straight person sex and make babies because they refused to let anyone else join. Or something like that.
Anyway, that's besides the point of my main message: why you shouldn't trust that Reddit post. People are taking it on its word about the "you can only be a dude" thing because they say its other claims are accurate. Well, I'm saying they aren't - and before I go on, I'll give the obvious disclaimer that the amount of official information we have is very limited and I'm taking a fair few educated guesses, and it may turn out that "Sandra Reed" (hereafter known as "Reed") is 100% right. But probably not.
I worked on, and played, Fallout 4. Yes, I did.
While it's entirely possible Reed worked on Fallout 4, I'm curious about the playing part because I don't think it would have been in a particularly finished state a year ago and the information given would suggest an almost-finished game.
At the beginning of the game, you create your character (You can only be a male in the main story), and afterward, you start the game with a blast. After the blast, you awake to see the building you are standing inside blown apart and your wife, Lydia, dead. Robots and Androids are storming the place, killing and kidnapping the people inside. You, known as "The Officer", must escape and get revenge.
The trailer suggests your character comes out of a Vault (111), not inside a building being attacked by robots. The intro Reed describes has no place for a Vault in it. As for the "Cryo Hypothesis" that the PC is a survivor from before the war who later emerges from Vault 111, there is little chance the above scene could reasonably happen before the war. First, androids are implied to be a post-war invention. Second, "escaping and getting revenge" doesn't suggest "hide in bunker from impending nuclear war" to me; it suggests "The Officer" running off into the wasteland. I consider this the second-strongest counterpoint, after the engine one below.
LOCATION: Fallout 4 is set in and around Boston and the surrounding countryside.
The downtown area is entirely controlled by "The Institute", a group of techies and scholars, as well as researchers, who devote their lives to technology. The countryside area is a "Wasteland" with small towns and settlements, as well as vaults here and there.
While this seems to fit the information from the trailer, keep in mind that the concept of Fallout 4 being in Boston was a deeply ingrained meme among Fallout fans long before anything from Bethesda was leaked (See: Survivor 2299). This could easily be either a case of telling people what they expect to hear, or simply a stopped clock.
Logan International Airport is taken over by the Brotherhood of steel, who are there trying to control the technology, and are currently waging a war against the institute, as they both have disagreements as to who should be in control of the technology in the area.
Nothing in the trailer suggests an all-out Brotherhood-Institute war and since this would presumably be a major (if not the main) plot I doubt they would leave it out.
The map of Fallout 4 is about 3 times the size of Skyrim. The reason for this is to make a much more realistic and interactive world, that players can always find new things, even if they have played it for years after release.
I question this first purely out of my expectations for corporate greed. Why make a bigger world when you could sell more areas as DLC? That said, it sounds awesome - too awesome to be realistic, in my mind. I realize this is my weakest point, of course.
The Institute returns from Fallout 3, and is headed by a man named Thomas Littleton. They are the primary antagonists of the game, and control most of Boston Downtown. Their patrols in Downtown Boston are the counterpart in this game to the Super Mutants in Downtown DC in Fallout 3.
...
Raiders return too.
The trailer doesn't show any "Institute patrols", nor does it indicate anything evil about them. Pointing out that raiders are back seems too obvious for a Fallout game to point out as a feature or treat as any sort of "leak".
This version uses a brand new engine built from the ground up to take advantage of the power of next gen systems. Absolutely everything is new, and no assets or scrips are being used from Fallout 3/NV or Skyrim.
The engine used in the trailer appears quite similar to Skyrim's Creation Engine, and even if it is incrementally different it is almost certainly not "built from the ground up" or completely new. If it is a brand new engine, it sure as hell isn't "next gen". I would dare say this is
the biggest hole in Reed's claim based on available information.
Fallout 4 will also be available on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. This version is also being developed by Bethesda Game Studios, but will release a year after the advanced version.
The site does not mention PS3 or 360 versions, and making them doesn't make a lot of economic sense because of how old the old gen consoles will be by the time of the games release; the potential sales don't seem like enough to justify a port to a completely different engine (and it probably isn't even, see previous point), particularly one done in-house by Bethesda rather than focusing on DLC or their next game (TES 6, hopefully).
Also, players of the PS3/360 version will be pleased to know that Fallout 4 will be able to import your Fallout 3 save, and adapt choices you made from that game for Fallout 4. This means that some additional characters could pop up, depending on if you killed them or not in Fallout 3. Also, some story references from Fallout 3 will be mentioned. Did the BOS save the capitol wasteland? Or did it fall? Did Sarah turn on the purifier and die? Or did the lone wanderer do it? It might get mentioned depending on your choices!
Assuming old gen versions were made, I doubt they would have
more features than new gen, especially given that Reed claimed elsewhere that the opposite would be true. Also, they don't indicate the possibility of such a system being on the PC version if it were implemented.
(Although by my experience, it actually looked and played more like the PS2/Xbox Fallout: Brotherhood of steel.)
Even bringing up PoS (sic) on a Fallout board seems like blatant bait.
Additionally, full support for Trophies/Achievements are present on all console versions, and full steamworks support is present for the PC version.
Much like raiders, these seem so obvious that I don't see why someone would point them out as features.
1. June 2015 - Fallout 4 reveal at E3, trailer only
2. July 2015 - First gameplay trailers
The Fallout 4 reveal preceded E3 by about two weeks, including the trailer. They can't just show a "trailer only" at E3 now because we've already seen the trailer.
5. November 2015 - First DLC
6. December 2015 - Second DLC, as well as PS3/360 version release
7. January 2016 - Third DLC
8. March 2016 - Forth DLC
9. April 2016 - Fifth and Final DLC
One of the commenters on the Reddit thread itself inspired this point. The DLC timeline is suspect in a) how carefully it's planned out, and b) how short it is - Fallout 3's last DLC came out 10 months after the game itself, while the Skyrim DLC schedule took 15 months to complete. Since this game is supposed to be bigger and better than both, why is its DLC schedule only 6 months long?
And inspired by that same comment but applying to the post as a whole: Why would Bethesda let so much insider business information into the hands of a single grunt-tier employee who had worked there less than a month?