You probably haven’t heard, but Fallout 4 is out. After months of eager expectation, countless fans are tearing into it. Some, however, still don’t have their copies, and they’re not sure why.
Today was supposed to be the big day. Fallout 4 fans of all shapes and power armor sizes planned to “call in sick” and get lost in Bethesda’s latest slice of irradiated paradise. And yet, if you go just about anyplace where people are discussing Fallout 4, you’ll see a small avalanche of complaints about last-second delays. Heck, some people—like our own news overseer Jason Schreier, who pre-ordered a regular PS4 copy of the game—say they haven’t even received delay notifications. But the day’s almost over, and the physical copies of the game they pre-ordered still aren’t in their hands.
Others said they got sudden messages earlier today, some of them shortly after being told mere days earlier that everything was fine. Kotaku has received multiple email complaints about Fallout 4 Pip Boy Edition delays on Amazon, and a cursory Twitter search yielded tons more.
Things are looking equally dire on Reddit, where many claim they’ve encountered last-second delays as well—and are just as frustrated. If these accounts are to be believed, it’s not just Amazon. According to disappointed players, GameStop and Target have also turned gaming’s biggest season into the fall (out) of their discontent. An unhealthy number of complaints on GameStop’s Facebook page backs that up. Some orders have been delayed until tomorrow, others until the end of the week or indefinitely.
I’ve reached out to Amazon, Target, GameStop, and Bethesda to find out what’s going on. So far, only GameStop’s replied. A rep explained:
“Due to an unforeseen shipping issue, a small number of orders for the Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition were delayed by one day. We were able to ship these items today and affected customers will have the game shortly. We are working vigilantly to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
However, given that reports of non-Pip-Boy versions getting delayed by Amazon have surfaced, this may not be the only issue.
Did you pre-order a physical copy of Fallout 4? Has it shown up yet? If not, have you been directly informed of a delay or given a reason for it? And finally, has the retailer you purchased the game from offered a voucher or anything like that as an apology?
Update: Amazon’s now offering $10 store credits to everyone who was affected.
To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @vahn16.