You may remember the clay heads used in dialog from the original Fallout CRPGs. They've not aged gracefully, what with their stiff animations and pudding-like faces, but you can't tell the full story of how RPG visuals evolved in the late '90s without them. They (and all the sprites in the original Fallout) represent a milestone for the CRPG—and as far as Fallout co-creator Tim Cain knows, their source art assets might just be gone for good.
"Even though it shipped with sprites, it was a sprite-based engine, they were all made in 3D. They were made in Maya or Alias," Cain said in a video on his YouTube channel. "Those source art files were huge … they were backed up to DAT tape, but I don't know what happened to that DAT tape and it doesn't last that long. They last five or ten years before they start having errors. So, I think that source art is all gone."
