How I Almost Made Wasteland 2

tim-cain wasteland fallout ea interplay game-history troika

Abstract

Problem: How did the opportunity to make Wasteland 2 arise for Tim Cain in the late 1990s, and why did he turn it down?

Approach: Tim Cain recounts a phone call he received from Electronic Arts shortly after leaving Interplay, offering him the chance to lead Wasteland 2 development.

Findings: EA had never intended to license Wasteland back to Interplay and had been deliberately stringing them along. After Fallout shipped and impressed EA executives, they sought out Tim Cain to make Wasteland 2 at EA. He declined, both because he felt Fallout already was his Wasteland 2, and because EA's cavalier attitude toward the business deception put him off.

Key insight: Tim Cain's decision to turn down Wasteland 2 at EA led directly to Troika Games and Arcanum — a path he doesn't regret, though he wonders what a 2001-era Wasteland 2 would have looked like.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0YwWVBDERQ

Background: Fallout and Wasteland's Tangled History

During Fallout's development at Interplay (~1994), the team knew about Wasteland and many had played it, but most hadn't finished it. The original plan was to potentially license Wasteland, but when Brian Fargo and Dick Lehrberg informed the team that EA wouldn't grant the license, the Fallout team wasn't overly concerned — they had already diverged in their own creative direction.

What Tim Cain didn't know at the time was that EA had never intended to license Wasteland to Interplay. They were deliberately stringing Interplay along. EA's reasoning, as later explained to Tim, was that they found Interplay "ungrateful for everything we did and a little pompous."

The Phone Call

After Fallout shipped and Tim left Interplay in early 1998, he was decompressing from years of crunch and casually exploring next steps with Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson.

One morning, he received a phone call from a woman who had been calling every "Timothy Kane," "Tim Kaine," and "T. Kane" across Orange County, LA County, and San Diego County trying to find him. She passed him to someone Tim believes was William "Bing" Gordon, EA's Chief Creative Officer at the time.

Gordon explained that EA executives had played Fallout since October and loved it. His pitch was straightforward: come to EA, set up a team, and make Wasteland 2. The catch was relocating to the Bay Area.

Why He Turned It Down

Tim gave two reasons:

  1. The stated reason: He felt he had already made Wasteland 2 — it was called Fallout.
  2. The real reason: Gordon had casually described how EA strung Interplay along for months as a joke, seemingly expecting Tim to find it amusing since he'd left Interplay. Instead, it revealed a business attitude Tim didn't want in a boss. "That's not exactly somebody I want as a boss."

When Tim told Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson about the offer, neither pushed him to reconsider. They had just walked away from Fallout 2 — why would they want to make Wasteland 2?

The Road Not Taken

Tim reflects that had he accepted, Wasteland 2 would have shipped around 2001 — the same timeframe as Arcanum. Accepting would have meant:

  • A Wasteland 2 existing over a decade before inXile's 2014 version
  • No Troika Games
  • No Arcanum, Temple of Elemental Evil, or Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

Tim says he doesn't regret the decision, but admits he sometimes wonders what that alternate timeline would have looked like.

Documentation Note

Tim took notes during the phone call on a pad he kept by his landline. He later lost the original paper, but reconstructed events in a written account requested by Troika's lawyer, documenting everything from his Interplay resignation through Troika's formation. He also discussed the call with Leonard and Jason the same day it happened.

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