The idea of Fallout 4 has been enough to fire imaginations in gamers for some time now, but a pronounced lack of news has given rise to plenty of hoaxes. However, history suggests that we may well be facing the end of the drought of actual news on this one, thanks to an event set to hit later this week.

Specifically, we're talking about the VGX 2014 event, formerly known as the Video Game Awards show on Spike. That particular event has always offered a lot for gamers, ranging from discussion of the year's biggest names to even some advance looks at future titles with new trailers occasionally showing up. Reports suggest that GameTrailersTV host Geoff Keighley, who also serves as VGX's executive producer, had a "great night" of planning recently with Bethesda staffers. Word also emerged around a major announcement, and given that The Evil Within is currently on shelves, Bethesda's starting to run out of non-Fallout related topics. But of particular note here is that VGX is familiar ground for Bethesda; Skyrim got its official announcement at the event back in 2010, with a gameplay trailer for E3 2011, followed up by a release date in November 2011.

Does that mean that VGX will see new Fallout news? Not necessarily; the annual Bethesda Christmas Card from 2013 showed us plenty of references, but nothing Fallout related. Rather, we had The Evil Within, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and the Elder Scrolls MMO. But with a new Christmas card about to be written, and all three of those titles now quite thoroughly in play, Bethesda's going to need something new to make a Christmas card around, and from the look of it, the only thing in the pipe right now is Fallout.

There hasn't been much in the way of word about new releases, and that means there just aren't that many other properties on hand. Now, of course, there could be other intellectual property we haven't seen yet. Bethesda's been seen to play things close to the vest. Plus, there's the issue of the console translation of the Elder Scrolls MMO to consider, and BattleCry and Doom 4 are both still on hand. So it's entirely possible that this VGX could come and go with very little new out of the company. However, it's been better than four years since our last tango with the radioactive, and we're all getting a little tired of waiting, some more so than others. However, given that Oblivion came out in March 2006, and Skyrim came out November 2011, five years seems to be about the standard run any more. Yes, we had only two years between Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, but still.

Only time will tell just what comes out of Bethesda at the big event, if anything, but there's plenty of reason to hope that 2015 could well be the year of new Fallout.