Fallout 4 Hoaxer Just Wanted &quot;To Watch The World Burn&quot;S

"I'm one of these 'selfish bastards with a lot of money,'" he says.

We were all enthralled and excited by thesurvivor2299, a fake viral site that many (though not us) believed would lead to the ultimate reveal of Fallout 4. News broke over the weekend that it was fake, but most importantly hearts broke when we discovered that a video game sequel we had longed to play remains unrevealed; it's existence unconfirmed.

It was a hoax. An incredible, elaborate hoax.

In a brilliant finale, the hoaxer himself has begun taking question on an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit. His answers are short and sweet but it's still worth reading, to get an inside look at the motivations and decision making of one of the world's greatest trolls. And I use the word 'troll' in the best sense of the word. Bravo man, you fooled the world. Or at least made them curious.

Some of the revelations are interesting.

For example, the hoaxer only stopped once the Bethesda tweet, which went out over the weekend, confirmed that the site was a fake. Bethesda also contacted him regarding the site, but has been keeping quiet on precisely what was said during that conversation.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the AMA was the fact that it actually cost the hoaxer $990 dollars to put the this whole thing together. He had to put a halt to the whole thing early, but apparently the whole exercise was supposed to culminate in a CGI trailer release. The CGI trailer apparently exists, but the hoaxer plans to wait a little while until the heat dies down. He's pissed off Bethesda enough he says.

As to his motivations?

"Some men just want to watch the world burn," he said. "I wanted to force Bethesda to reveal something during VGX/ on 12/11, and bring /r/Fallout community together (for at least 3 weeks) Unfortunately, this plan Failed."

Oh, and at time of writing he's apparently had 14 death threats.

Good luck buddy and godspeed.

Uhm, Hello? I'm the Prick behind thesurvivor2299. AMA? [Reddit]

This post originally on Kotaku Australia, where Mark Serrels is the Editor. You can follow him onTwitter if you're into that sort of thing.