Unlocking Fallout 4 Early: Seven Things You Shouldn’t Do

Fallout 4 will release on November 10–that’s just a day from now. It’ll come out slightly later in Asia, much to the chagrin of gamers in the region. With the clocks so close to release, some players have managed to pick up the game ahead of time, to the envy of everyone else who’s still waiting for Amazon or GameStop to deliver their copy. The wait may be almost over, but it may still be too long, leading the very desperate to try to find ways to acquire the game early.

With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of things you probably shouldn’t do to get the game right away. If you have the patience, there are some things you can do while you wait.

Setting the system clock forward

Also known as “wishful thinking,” setting your system clock forward doesn’t quite work with online releases. Games distributed over PSN, Xbox Live and Steam operate on a server-based schedule, not the local time of your system. This might fly with completing those time-based operations in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it won’t help you unlock Fallout 4 early.

Changing your Steam store region to “Australia” or “New Zealand”

There may be ways to get around Steam’s region-based release schedule, but the risks don’t necessarily outweigh the benefits if you don’t quite know what you’re doing. Changing your store region to that of another country is the quickest way to getting your account suspended from Steam.

Traveling to Germany or Dubai to pick up the game early

One fan of Fallout 4 actually did this. Traveling from Serbia to Germany, a game journalist and fan of the series going by MMORPGLife on Reddit spent a total of 22 hours traveling to a foreign country to pick up the game ahead of its release, explaining that he couldn’t score a review copy due to his location.

Threatening a game developer

Threatening to slap Todd Howard with a large trout isn’t going to help you get the game any quicker. It might lead to an arrest, however. And your hands will smell fishy.

Performing favors for some shady character on the Internet

There’s a lot of scam artists out there, and they’re always looking for opportunities to enrich themselves. You know that old saying “There’s a sucker born every minute?” commonly attributed to P.T. Barnum? Yeah, don’t be that person.

Knocking yourself out with a sedative

You know how sleeping in any Bethesda title, or even the original Fallout games for that matter, allows you to fast-forward time? For real life, there’s always Waitmate. But the nightmares probably aren’t worth it.

Freezing yourself in a cryogenic sleep chamber

We know how excited you are for the game, but freezing yourself in a cryogenic sleep chamber isn’t the best idea. Remember what happened when Eric Cartman did it? He woke up several hundred years into the future and all he got for it was a lousy debate about atheism.