There was a time when Fallout was seen as more of a cute, playtime project than the multi-bajillion-dollar IP Bethesda ultimately helped turn it into, says the RPG's co-creator Tim Cain.
Speaking to Game Informer for its massive new Fallout oral history, Cain recalls the early days of Fallout at Interplay, the franchise's first home before Bethesda purchased it in 2004. But it wasn't a particularly warm home to the original Fallout devs, it seems, as Cain remembers feeling like "we were a B-tier side project at Interplay."
"They got the D&D license about six months to a year after we started, and they're like, 'Okay, that's the A-tier. Those are the money teams,'" Cain says, "And we're off in the corner."
Fallout designer Leonard Boyarsky remembers it similarly, agreeing that "it was very much like, here's our team off in the corner, and there's the rest of Interplay" – but he's grateful for it.
"I was aware enough to know this is weird in a really good way," he muses. "This is like we're making an indie game, but we have a steady job, and we have steady paychecks, and we're not trying to find a publisher for it, because once they saw what we were doing – and they appreciated what we were doing – they're just like, 'Well, we have these much more important games! The Dungeons and Dragons games are licensed to print money. Just don't bother anybody. Just go over there and do your thing and it'll be great.'"
And, well, it was great.
