Challenges Making A Fallout Remaster

tim-cain fallout remaster game-development legal technical

Abstract

Problem: Why hasn't the original Fallout (1997) been remastered, and what would it actually take?

Approach: Tim Cain, the creator of Fallout, walks through every obstacle he can identify — legal, technical, and subjective — drawing on his unique position as the person who knows the codebase, the licensing deals, and the design decisions better than anyone alive.

Findings: A Fallout remaster faces a gauntlet of intertwined problems: Bethesda owns the rights and code, the music license doesn't cover a remaster, the original compiler (Watcom) is obsolete, critical source code for sound/movies was never archived, voice actors have passed away, and nearly every "fix" opens subjective debates about what the game should feel like.

Key insight: The technical challenges are solvable and even fun — it's the legal barriers and the endless subjective debates about what counts as a "bug" versus a "feature" that make a remaster genuinely daunting.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDGmxE_G5PI

Three Categories of Problems

Tim organizes every remaster obstacle into three buckets: legal, technical, and subjective. He notes that while the technical and subjective issues often intertwine, the legal ones stand alone as the most discouraging.

Bethesda Owns Everything

When Tim left Interplay, he was told not to keep any copies of Fallout's source code. He destroyed everything — including early prototypes and personal libraries, which broke some of his own unrelated hobby projects. Bethesda now holds the code and would have to authorize any remaster.

The Music License

The song "Maybe" by The Ink Spots was licensed from EMI specifically for the original game. Unlike modern game music licenses, it had no time limit — but it also doesn't cover a remaster. The song would need to be re-licensed, adding cost and legal complexity.

Technical Issues

The Watcom Compiler Problem

Fallout was coded in C using the Watcom compiler, which is now obsolete, unsupported, and buggy. Tim personally found and reported compiler bugs during development. Watcom also has limited warning, error, and optimization capabilities compared to modern compilers, and is incompatible with newer versions of DirectX. Switching to Visual Studio (the obvious modern choice) triggers a cascade of new problems.

The Missing Sound and Movie Code

The programmer who wrote Fallout's sound and movie systems refused to hand over his source code — a situation Tim still doesn't fully understand. He only ever provided compiled Watcom libraries. These libraries won't link with Visual Studio, and the source code was never archived.

Tim outlines workarounds:

  • Sound effects and voices: Stored as .snd files (raw wave data with headers stripped). Recoverable if you know the format.
  • Music: Stored in proprietary ACM format, but the soundtrack exists externally — Tim even has a team-made "Fallout Soundtrack CD" he could rip.
  • Movies: Stored in a proprietary compressed format played through the missing library. Best workaround: record them straight from the running game and re-encode in a modern format. "A pain in the butt, yeah, but doable."

Compilation and Optimization

Even with all code available, the game needs modernization: memory management, video rendering, and OS compatibility all need rework for modern systems.

The Subjective Minefield

What Counts as a Bug?

Everyone agrees on fixing crashes, memory leaks, and lost inventory. But what about:

  • AI behavior: NPCs shoot each other; companions shoot you in the back; companions flee but stay "in combat" so combat never ends. Fixing these changes the game's feel — including the beloved jank.
  • Script bugs: You can complete the game without ever finding the Water Chip (speedrunners exploit this). Fixing it means the Overseer needs new dialogue lines — but his voice actor, Kenneth Mars, has passed away.
  • Stat check bugs: The intelligence check for beating ZAX the supercomputer at chess can never return a critical success due to a code bug. The script is correct; the underlying system is broken. Should it be fixed?

The Voice Actor Problem

If the Water Chip bug is fixed, the Overseer needs new lines. Tim lists five options, each with escalating controversy:

  1. Don't add new lines (confusing for players)
  2. Add unvoiced text (talking head sits silent)
  3. Frankenstein new lines from existing audio clips
  4. Hire a voice actor to mimic Kenneth Mars
  5. Use AI voice synthesis (Tim acknowledges "a ton of you hate this idea")

Platform and UI Questions

  • Platforms: PC is assumed, but what about Mac, consoles, tablets, mobile? Each adds legal, technical, and UI challenges.
  • Controls: The original left-click/right-click paradigm is dated. Other platforms demand new input schemes.
  • Inventory: The hated horizontal strip inventory could be replaced with a grid, sorting options, or newest-first ordering — but how much change makes it "a new game" rather than a remaster?
  • Critical failures: Should they be toggleable? Removed entirely? Only for the player and companions?
  • Resolution: Running above 640×480 requires decisions about real-time sprite scaling, offline upscaling, or just leaving tiny sprites on a big screen.

Tim's Personal Take

  • Legal issues: "I have absolutely no interest in trying to figure that out."
  • Technical issues: "These are fun to me. I would love to dive in and work on some of these." He knows the code intimately and considers this the enjoyable part.
  • Subjective issues: "I don't think there's a correct answer to any of these." He knows what he'd do for some, but would leave others alone even if players consider them problems.

His bottom line: work on a remaster should be enjoyable, and discussions about these decisions should be fun, not arguments. But whoever takes this on will inevitably face arguments over subjective decisions that have no correct answer.

Tim made this video so that the next time someone asks "why isn't Fallout being remastered?" — he can just link them here.

References