Long-time fans of Fallout will no doubt be familiar with the name Timothy (or Tim) Cain. As the creator of the series, as well as having a prolific career in video game development overall, his name is often associated with the post-apocalyptic series, at least when it all began.
While Cain hasn’t worked on a Fallout game since he left the sequel’s production, it hasn’t stopped fans from asking if he’ll ever make a triumphant return. In a recent video, the veteran programmer not only waxes lyrical about some of the projects he’s worked on over the years, but ponders what it would take to encourage him to go back to the world he helped create.
If you’re a fan of Cain’s work in any respect, the above video is definitely interesting. To hear what a respected developer with an impressive resume has to say about his own career is worth a watch. However, it doesn’t look like we’ll see him come back to Fallout just yet.
Fallout needs to offer something “different”
Across the whole 17 minutes, Cain talks about what it is that draws him to a certain project. He says that it’s not necessarily about money or authority, but about whether the game in question offers something “new.”
In the case of Vampire: The Masquerades – Bloodlines, it was an opportunity to work with an engine he hadn’t personally designed (in this case: Valve’s Source). When it came to South Park: The Stick of Truth, it was about helping to develop a console title for the first time in his career. For The Outer Worlds, it was about getting to work on a sci-fi opera game.
With Fallout, Cain essentially says that any upcoming projects being offered to him would have to be more than just a straight-up sequel. It has to interest him personally, with something different that he perhaps hasn’t tried before. You have to admire a person who holds on to such convictions after a successful career that spans three decades.
In essence, whether it’s a numbered Fallout game, some offshoot that takes place in the same universe (such as New Vegas), or a remake of the very first installment, Tim Cain may well never return to the now Bethesda-owned franchise unless it genuinely intrigues him. He’s done the action-based role-playing game set in a post-nuclear wasteland, and it seems unlikely that Fallout will ever budge from its award-winning identity.
