Fallout is quite the iconic franchise, and it’s an RPG that most associate with being a single-player experience. However, that changed not too long ago when Bethesda delivered Fallout 76 in 2018. The game made significant changes as it brought in an MMO experience. But if you were to ask the original co-creator of Fallout, Tim Cain, this franchise was never meant to be anything other than a solo gameplay experience.
PC Gamer had the chance to speak with Tim Cain about Fallout Online. If you don’t recall, Fallout Online was an MMO attempt at Fallout that came before Fallout 76. Developers at Interplay had been thinking about this game since the late 1990s but wouldn’t actually get into development until 2007. This is notable because this was also the year Bethesda acquired the IP from Interplay Entertainment. However, initial agreements allowed Interplay to develop this MMO experience.
At the time, Tim Cain was no longer working at Interplay, but he was requested to help out. Telling PC Gamer, Tim Cain revealed that he wasn’t keen on making any such MMO game. In his eyes, this franchise was only meant to be a single-player experience rather than having players no longer feel like they were the Vault’s sole savior. Instead, he expressed that the developers were making a much harder experience for themselves to develop a game that was meant to be story-driven rather than mission-driven.
I remember several meetings with them. Where I basically was like, ‘I’m super cautious about this, and for multiple reasons.’ One of those reasons was the fact that that acronym would spell out “fool”. But his biggest concern was that a game with lots of players did not fit Fallout’s themes.
I said, ‘We’ve designed a game where you’re going out in the Wasteland by yourself … And you want to convert it to a game where you come out of your Vault and there’s 1,000 other blue and yellow vault-suited people running around. You realize that’s a very, very different setting and game and kind of player? And you want to switch it from story-driven to mission-driven. – Tim Cain
Of course, Interplay pushed on, but eventually, they didn’t meet the agreements in their contract with Bethesda. As a result, the game project was trashed.
While there has been a big resurgence lately with the franchise thanks to the hit Amazon Fallout TV series, we’re left waiting on when we’ll get that next major installment. Instead, we’re only getting support through Fallout 76, as we already know Bethesda is working on the next installment to the Elder Scrolls franchise after wrapping up the planned content for Starfield. Out of speculation, we might be a long way out before the next installment of Fallout is worked on if it’s done at Bethesda.
Meanwhile, we’re sure that more than a few players are diving into the classic installments because of the TV series mentioned above. We also know that season two had begun filming so expect another resurgence when this season drops.
