Abstract
Problem: What does it actually take to be a good game director, and why do so many people misunderstand the role?
Approach: Tim Cain draws on decades of experience directing games like Fallout and The Outer Worlds, sharing concrete stories about decision-making, co-direction, handling disagreements, and taking responsibility.
Findings: The game director is the singular vision-holder — the captain of the ship. The role demands making subjective decisions with authority, trusting specialists to fill your gaps, and accepting responsibility for everything in the final product, even decisions you didn't make or agree with. It's not a role you should skip to — it requires years of experience and observation.
Key insight: You will make most of the decisions, but you will take all of the responsibility. Your final decision might be deferring to someone who knows better — but the accountability is still yours.
The Role: Captain of the Ship
The game director (formerly called project leader, sometimes producer or lead designer in the '90s) is the person who holds the vision for the game. Tim compares it to a ship's captain at the wheel — you wouldn't want a boat where anyone can run up and turn the wheel at any time. You'd hit an iceberg or run aground. One person steers.
This means directors must make all the tough decisions, and not all of them are objective. Sometimes you simply have to declare: "This is what we're doing." Josh Sawyer once called it being the "benevolent dictator" — a necessary role when team members won't let go of an idea.
Co-Directing The Outer Worlds
Tim co-directed The Outer Worlds with Leonard Boyarsky, which he considers a rare situation where multiple directors can work. The key was dividing the work clearly: both collaborated on setting and story, then Tim handled systems and mechanics while Leonard handled art and narrative. It worked because they utterly trusted each other and gave each other full autonomy in their domains.
The Art Style Argument
An artist at Obsidian disagreed with The Outer Worlds' art direction and wanted it to look more like Fallout 1. She proceeded to explain the Fallout 1 art style to Leonard Boyarsky — the person who created that art style. Tim, self-described as "aesthetic blind," watched this unfold from their shared office. Eventually Leonard had to simply say: "I hear what you're saying. I understand it. We're not doing it."
This is something every director must be prepared to do.
Taking Responsibility for Everything
Once a game ships, the director takes responsibility for virtually everything — whether they decided it or not, whether they even liked it or not.
The Epic Exclusivity Story
During an interview, Tim confirmed The Outer Worlds would be on Steam. Weeks later, Private Division and Epic made a deal — without involving Tim, Leonard, or even Obsidian — to make it an Epic exclusive for a year. Players accused Tim of lying. His response: he stepped away from PR entirely for a while. "If Private Division wants me to do something, my answer is no." Eric DeMilt called it Tim "taking his football and going home." Tim says he's only done that twice in a big way: walking away from Fallout 2 and walking away from WildStar.
Don't Skip the Ladder
Tim noticed a frustrating trend in his later years at Obsidian: people applying directly for lead or director positions with zero professional experience. One applicant listed "tech director" experience that turned out to be school projects. Tim told him bluntly: claiming professional director experience from school projects is "tantamount to fraud." The applicant's professor had told him to pad his resume this way — Tim told him to have that professor call him so he could set them straight.
Being a Team Member Again
After directing projects, Tim went back to being a regular team member on South Park, Pillars of Eternity, and Tyranny. He established a personal rule: if the game director made a decision he disagreed with, he'd talk to them privately about it exactly once. If they said no, he'd drop it and never bring it up again.
He broke that rule once, on something he felt so strongly about that he went back a second time — not to overrule the director, but to point out that the consequences he'd predicted were now happening. The director agreed the consequences were real but didn't think they were a big deal. This is the nature of subjectivity in game development.
Objectivity vs. Subjectivity
Tim emphasizes that people constantly confuse their taste with objective reality. "This game crashed too much, it objectively sucks" — but how much is too much? Someone else saves frequently and doesn't care. The game is good to them and bad to you. That's subjective.
There are genuinely objective problems: a character build that literally can't finish the game, or a quest item that can be permanently destroyed by accident. Tim shares his own Ultima Underworld horror story — accidentally throwing a quest item into lava because the game interpreted a misclick as "throw" instead of "give," losing an hour and a half of progress.
But whether such a flaw makes the overall game bad is still subjective.
Trust Your Specialists
A critical part of being a good director is knowing your own weaknesses and hiring people to fill those gaps. Tim is candid about his:
- Not a good narrative/dialogue writer — so find good ones
- Not great at balancing — so find someone who is
You have final authority, but you don't always make the final decision. Sometimes your final decision is: "I'm going with what that person says, because I know they're better at this than me." But you still take the final responsibility.
The Bottom Line
Being a game director is tiring. Tim went through periods where he didn't want to direct anymore and just wanted to go back to code and a little design on the side. His advice to aspiring directors: start lower down, find the good directors, and watch them. If you end up at a good destination, a lot of it was how the boat was steered.
References
- Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7uaMQnMsvI