Research

tim-cain arcanum fallout outer-worlds game-design research world-building pre-production

Abstract

Problem: How important is research in game development, when should it happen, and what does it actually look like in practice?

Approach: Tim Cain answers a viewer's detailed question about research by walking through his own process on Fallout, Arcanum, and The Outer Worlds — including a Victorian-era reference document he wrote for Arcanum in 1998.

Findings: Research is essential even for non-historical settings, happens both before and during production, and encompasses far more than just reading history books — movies, TV shows, games, and catalogs all count. Tim shares specific examples of deep-dive research that paid off, from FEV microbiology to Victorian-era social issues.

Key insight: Research starts with your setting (the most fundamental design decision) and never truly ends — things come up mid-production that demand deeper investigation, and the best research often surfaces in ways most players won't notice but the right ones will.

1. Setting Comes First

Tim begins by establishing his foundational principle: setting is the first and most fundamental decision in game development. Before you can research, you need to know what you're researching. His hierarchy is: setting → story → system mechanics. Research flows from having a setting locked down.

2. What Counts as Research

Research isn't limited to libraries and history books. Tim defines it broadly:

  • Reading history and science
  • Watching movies and TV shows in the same setting
  • Reading fiction set in that world
  • Playing board games and video games with similar settings
  • Looking at real-world catalogs and primary sources

The goal is twofold: find what you like about how others handled the setting, and what you don't like. Not everything needs to be logically justified. Mad Max's post-apocalyptic fashion (where survivors somehow had hair gel and dressed like Duran Duran extras) wasn't realistic, but the Fallout team loved the look and adopted it. Juxtapositions that shouldn't work — like 1950s aesthetics mixed with far-future technology — can become a game's defining identity.

3. The Arcanum Victorian Document

Tim's most concrete example is a reference document he wrote for Arcanum starting in 1998 (last edited September 2000), titled "Victorian Times." It defined the Victorian era (1837–1901) and cataloged the social, environmental, and cultural issues the team would draw from. The document served as a shared reference so anyone writing quests or dialogue could stay grounded in the setting.

3.1. Topics covered in the document

  • Coal and industry — not just as power, but its role in metallurgy and engineering
  • Occupational hazards — chimney sweeps developing cancer, hatters going mad from mercury salts (origin of "Mad as a Hatter"), boot blacks getting liver damage from solvents
  • Air pollution — a problem reported as early as 1661 but reaching crisis levels in the 1700s–1800s
  • Corsets and their cultural significance
  • Railroad magnates — railroads were central to Arcanum's world
  • Missionary work and exploration of unknown territories
  • Leisure — fox hunting, ballooning, boxing (revived in London with 18th-century prize fights), opera houses
  • Mail-order catalogs — enabled by steamboats and railroads; people ordered entire house kits from Sears catalogs in the early 1900s ("the Amazon of 1901")
  • Scientific discoveries — fossils, paleontology, early aviation
  • Social issues — child labor, education, labor strikes, women's suffrage, infant mortality
  • Photo plays — primitive motion pictures

Tim notes that Arcanum deliberately used these historical realities as commentary through the lens of a fantasy game. When people accused the game of depicting racism or sexism, the team was consciously addressing those real Victorian-era issues.

4. Research During Production

Research doesn't stop when development begins. Tim identifies two scenarios that trigger mid-production research:

  1. Shallow coverage — the pre-production research was too surface-level to support a quest or character that needs depth
  2. Unexpected needs — a writer discovers they need expertise the team doesn't have

4.1. The FEV Deep Dive

Tim's best example of mid-production research is Fallout's Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). During development, he did a deep dive into microbiology — specifically virions — and wrote detailed documentation on how FEV worked at a biological level.

He was partly inspired by a book about a woman born with a quadruple helix DNA structure instead of the normal double helix, which granted her a form of biological immortality. Tim took that concept and applied it to FEV: what if the virus duplicated your DNA helix? This would explain radiation resistance (redundant genetic information means damage can be repaired), longer lifespans, and the physical transformation into super mutants.

The research paid off. After Fallout shipped, a German microbiologist wrote to the team praising the accuracy of the FEV description. Tim connects this to his philosophy on lore: most players won't notice the depth, and those who do might not fully understand it, but "the right people will get it."

5. Research Across Tim's Games

Each of Tim's major projects had its own research character:

  • Fallout — diverges from real history; research focused on nuclear radiation, 1950s culture, and post-apocalyptic fiction (A Boy and His Dog, Mad Max)
  • Arcanum — a fantasy world with an industrial revolution bolted on; research focused heavily on Victorian England, with Tarant modeled after London
  • The Outer Worlds — also diverges from real history at some point, requiring research into the alternate timeline's implications

6. Summary

Tim's advice distilled: start with your setting, research broadly (history, science, media, games), write it all down in shared documents so the whole team stays aligned, and expect to do additional research throughout production. The best game worlds are built on a foundation of genuine knowledge — even if most of it stays invisible to the player.

Source: Tim Cain — "Research"

7. References