Bethesda announces E3 showcase. Internet erupts with Fallout 4 rumors.

Bethesda, the studio behind the popular Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises, announced it will have a news conference at the 2015 E3 gaming conference. It's possible that Bethesda will use its E3 showcase to announce Fallout 4.

Big software companies such as EA and Ubisoft are major fixtures at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3.

The video game show is a chance for those companies to show off their upcoming titles and share updates to major franchises. But this year, Bethesda will grab the spotlight for its first dedicated press conference.

The company’s publishing arm, Bethesda Softworks, has partnered with other studios on recent titles such as The Evil Within and Dishonored, but Bethesda hasn’t published its own game since 2011, when The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released.

That’s why a short post on the company blog, announcing that Bethesda will have its own E3 press conference for the first time ever, is generating so much excitement online. Bethesda will likely unveil a major project at E3 – and that probably means a new installment in one of its two major franchises, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.

The last game in the post-apocalyptic series, Fallout: New Vegas, was developed in 2010 by Obsidian and published by Bethesda. The last Fallout game developed by Bethesda itself was Fallout 3, which came out in 2008. Rumors of Fallout 4 have been swirling since at least 2012, when Bethesda employees were rumored to be scouting Boston as the setting for a new title. The following year, gaming site Kotaku published a set of leaked casting documents that suggested that work on Fallout 4 had commenced.

It’s far from certain that Bethesda will use its E3 conference as an opportunity to announce a new Fallout game, but that’s the most likely possibility. It’s been fewer than four years since the release of Skyrim, so it’s probably too soon for a new Elder Scrolls game. Bethesda could announce the start of a brand-new franchise, but there have been no rumors to indicate that that will be the case.

The Fallout series began in 1997 with the game of the same name, developed by Black Isle Studios. The original Fallout game was set in southern California in the year 2161, shortly after a global nuclear war had devastated the Earth. Fallout 2, which introduced more role-playing elements to the series, was released the following year. Bethesda subsequently acquired the franchise and developed Fallout 3, which takes place more than 200 years after the events of the original Fallout.

Bethesda’s E3 news conference will take place on June 14, 2015. Bethesda said in their announcement that the showcase will be streamed online on their Twitch.tv channel.