Would I Work On Fallout Again?

1. The Pattern: Every RPG Offered Something New

Tim's first three games — Grand Slam Bridge, Bard's Tale Construction Set, and Rags to Riches — were assigned to him during his first 13 years in the industry. He was happy to work on them because they taught him game development fundamentals. But starting with Fallout, every game he chose (with one exception) offered him something genuinely novel.

1.1. Fallout: First Project Lead

Fallout was Tim's first project as producer and project leader. It was originally assigned to someone else who was too busy. Tim loved it because he could grow it into anything — any setting, any story, any mechanics. After 13 years in the industry, people at Interplay told him "wow, you already have your first project," to which he'd reply that getting your first project after 13 years isn't exactly a meteoric rise.

1.2. Why Not Fallout 2

Even before any issues arose at the end of Fallout's development, Tim didn't want to make Fallout 2. He told Fergus, who assigned a new team. Tim simply doesn't like working on sequels — he'd just spent three and a half years on Fallout and saw no reason to do it again. He even turned down EA's well-paying offer to make Wasteland 2, reasoning: "I just made a post-apocalyptic game, why would I want to do another one?"

1.3. Arcanum: First Fantasy RPG, First Own Company

When Tim, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson formed Troika, they specifically wanted to make a fantasy RPG — something they'd never done. Arcanum became a "kitchen sink" game because without an editor, they shoved in every idea they'd ever had. Some features were only halfway done and there were lots of bugs, but Tim still loves it because it was his first fantasy game.

1.4. Temple of Elemental Evil: First D&D Game, Third Edition, Meeting Gary Gygax

When Atari offered Troika a D&D game with freedom to choose the project, Tim couldn't resist: Third Edition rules (which he liked), the first-ever Greyhawk video game, the first Temple of Elemental Evil adaptation, and the chance to talk to Gary Gygax himself. Too many firsts to say no.

1.5. Vampire Bloodlines: First 3D Game, First C++, First Third-Party Engine

Bloodlines was packed with firsts — Tim's first 3D game, first time coding in C++ professionally (he'd been trained academically but had always shipped in C with assembly), and the first game he made in an engine he didn't create (Valve's Source engine).

1.6. WildStar (Carbine): First MMO

After Troika shut down, Tim had fallen in love with MMOs through EverQuest and World of Warcraft. The chance to make an MMO RPG at Carbine — learning about networking code, server architecture, and AI that handled thousands of creatures simultaneously — was too attractive to refuse.

1.7. South Park (Obsidian): First Console Game

When Obsidian recruited Tim, the hook was simple: it was a console game. After 30 years in the industry, he had never made one. The IP was nice and many colleagues were Interplay veterans, but the real draw was console development itself.

1.8. Pillars of Eternity: First Kickstarter, First Unity Game, First C# Game

Josh Sawyer and Adam Brennecke's Kickstarter idea offered multiple firsts: crowdfunded development without a publisher, the Unity engine (Tim's second third-party engine after Source), and shipping a game in C# — a language he'd known since ~2005 but never used for a published title.

1.9. Tyranny: The Exception

Tyranny is the one exception to the pattern. Same engine (Unity), same language (C#) — nothing technically novel. Tim loved the game and its setting, but for the first time in decades he was working on something assigned to him rather than something he specifically chose for its novelty. This experience reinforced how important the "what's new" factor was to his motivation.

1.10. The Outer Worlds: First Sci-Fi Game, First Unreal Engine

The Outer Worlds brought Tim back to choosing based on novelty: true sci-fi (spaceships, other worlds, space opera) and Unreal Engine, which he'd evaluated back in 2001-2002 for Bloodlines but never actually used. A much more mature engine by then, it was interesting just for that reason.

2. The Answer

When someone asks Tim "would you work on Fallout again?", his first question would be: "What's new about it?"

He didn't want to make Fallout 2. He turned down Wasteland 2. The question isn't about money, power, authority, or role — it's personal. Would the project offer something he's never done before?

Tim has been approached by people in recent years, even during the pandemic, offering money to direct games. But when there's nothing new in the offer — just "don't you want to make a new IP?" or "don't you want to be a director again?" — he's not interested. He's been there, done that.

3. On Privilege and Money

Tim pushes back on the framing that this is purely a privileged position. He made these same choices when he wasn't financially comfortable — turning down well-paying gigs to start Troika when he wasn't in a good financial state. Money matters (he expects to be paid well given his experience), but it's never been the initial draw. If a Fallout pitch can't immediately answer "what's new?", Tim is probably not interested.

4. On Knowing Your Tools

A side note Tim emphasizes: you don't really know a game engine until you've published a game with it. He can talk about Unity and Source because he shipped games on them. He can't really speak to Godot — he's looked at it, but colleagues have told him horror stories about localization and multi-platform publishing that you'd only discover by actually shipping. Making toys at home isn't the same as developing and publishing a real product.

5. References

• Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c21OGTOoxso