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Tim Cain

Fallout's project leader, Troika co-founder and The Outer Worlds' co-director

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Tim Cain started the prototype that became Interplay's Fallout in 1994 and led it to release in 1997 as its producer and lead programmer. He left Interplay early in 1998, co-founded Troika Games, which made Arcanum, The Temple of Elemental Evil and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines before closing in 2005, and later co-directed Obsidian's The Outer Worlds. Since 2023 he has told the stories of his career on YouTube.

In early 1994 Tim Cain, a programmer at Interplay, started building a role-playing game prototype out of graphics borrowed from the company’s other games. Three and a half years later it came out as Fallout, and Computer Gaming World called it “easily the best role-playing game released in the past year”. Cain led it the whole way, as project leader, producer and lead programmer. Then, early in 1998, while work on the sequel was starting, he left. He and two colleagues set up their own studio, Troika Games, which made three ambitious, famously buggy role-playing games in six years and then closed. More than twenty years after Fallout, he was co-directing The Outer Worlds for Obsidian, and in 2023 he began telling the stories behind all of it on YouTube.

Fast facts

  • Born: 1965, according to public reference sources.
  • Interplay: programmer; project leader, producer and lead programmer of Fallout (1997). Left in early 1998.
  • Troika Games: co-founded in 1998 with Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson; Arcanum (2001), The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003), Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004). Closed in 2005.
  • Later: Carbine Studios; Obsidian Entertainment from 2011, where he co-directed The Outer Worlds (2019).
  • YouTube: regular videos about game development since 2023.

Fallout

Fallout began, Wireframe wrote, in early 1994, “when then-Interplay employee Tim Cain started developing a prototype using some pre-existing assets from other Interplay games”. It was pitched as a spiritual successor to Brian Fargo’s Wasteland, with the same post-apocalyptic setting and the same freedom to be as good or as bad as the player liked. According to Edge, the project survived two near-cancellations before Fargo took a build home for a weekend, gave the game his blessing and told Cain: “You should call this Fallout.”

For most of its development Fallout was meant to use GURPS, Steve Jackson Games’ tabletop role-playing rules. Early in 1997, after Jackson began vetoing design decisions, Interplay dropped the licence over “creative differences” and wrote its own rules, which became SPECIAL. The decision was not Cain’s idea. “I was the one who wanted GURPS in the first place,” he told Computer Gaming World. “I set out to make a GURPS game, so I don’t want people to get the idea that I want to toss GURPS out.”

The game came out in October 1997. Computer Gaming World credited its design to Cain, Chris Taylor, Chris Jones and Leonard Boyarsky, and in 2000 called it “brilliantly conceived and executed by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Anderson, and the rest of the team”, “a minor miracle, and easily one of the best games of the 90’s”.

Cain did not stay for the sequel. In April 1998 PC Zone reported that “Tim Cain, producer of Interplay’s surprisingly good RPG Fallout, has quit working on the sequel and left to pursue his own interests”, adding that Interplay insisted the split was amicable. Computer Gaming World later referred to his “abrupt departure”. Fallout 2 came out later in 1998 under Interplay’s Black Isle label.

Troika Games

Troika Games was founded in April 1998 by Cain, Boyarsky and Jason Anderson, who had both worked on Fallout’s art. Cain spent six months looking for a publisher and chose Sierra, he said, “for one reason—trust.”

That game was Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001), a fantasy world in the middle of an industrial revolution, where magic and machinery work against each other. PC Zone called it “Jules Verne meets JRR Tolkien” and introduced Cain as “the lead programmer/designer of Fallout”. Computer Gaming World’s preview recognised the Fallout team’s hand at once, from the view from above to the row of action-point bubbles in turn-based fights. Asked how many hours had gone into the game, Cain said: “A back of the envelope calculation revealed 100,000 man-hours. Oh my god.”

Troika followed it with The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003), an adaptation of a classic Dungeons & Dragons module published by Atari, which Cain led, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (2004), published by Activision and built on Valve’s Source engine, on which Cain was one of the programmers. Both shipped with serious bugs. Computer Gaming World complained that Bloodlines had “so many rough edges”, from slow loading to broken enemy behaviour, while praising the “nightmarish” Los Angeles it created. Troika could not find a publisher for another game and closed in early 2005. Retro Gamer later recorded that the studio had closed “after going bust”.

Obsidian and The Outer Worlds

Cain moved into online games, as design director at Carbine Studios, which was making the online role-playing game WildStar. In 2011 he joined Obsidian Entertainment, the studio founded by former Black Isle staff, first as a programmer; he worked on its crowdfunded Pillars of Eternity. With Boyarsky he then co-directed The Outer Worlds (2019), a science-fiction role-playing game about colonists living under corporate rule. Wireframe noted that it was “directed by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, two developers who played a key role in making the original Fallout”, and Obsidian’s Brian Patel told the magazine that the two were its “game directors for this”. From mid-2020 Cain worked for Obsidian on contract rather than as a full-time employee, including on The Outer Worlds 2. In December 2025 he announced that he had returned to the studio full time.

Cain on Games

On 27 April 2023 Cain posted the first video of a series he called Cain on Games, and then posted almost daily. He explained the timing: “I’m now 57 years and 9 months old. That was the exact age my father was when he passed away.” He wanted his stories “documented somewhere”. The videos cover his time at Interplay, Troika and Obsidian, including why he left during Fallout 2, what it has been like to be a gay developer in the industry, making games with full colour blindness, and Troika’s unmade projects.

Sources

  • Feature on Fallout-inspired role-playing games, Wireframe issue 37, April 2020, p. 46: Fallout’s development from early 1994 and Cain’s prototype; the spiritual successor to Wasteland.
  • Edge issue 252, April 2013, p. 115, feature on Brian Fargo: the near-cancellations, “You should call this Fallout”, “lead programmer Tim Cain”.
  • Jeff Green, “GURPS Fallout” news report, Computer Gaming World issue 154, May 1997: Interplay drops GURPS over “creative differences”; Cain as “project leader” and his quote.
  • Jeff Green, Fallout review, Computer Gaming World issue 162, January 1998, pp. 254–255: “easily the best role-playing game released in the past year”; designers Cain, Taylor, Jones and Boyarsky.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 191, June 2000: Fallout “brilliantly conceived and executed by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Anderson”.
  • PC Zone issue 62, April 1998, p. 26: Cain quits during work on the sequel; the split “amicable”.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 173, December 1998, p. 61: “the abrupt departure of designer Tim Cain”.
  • InterAction (Sierra), Spring 1999: Sierra to publish Troika’s first game; Troika founded in April 1998; Cain’s quote on choosing Sierra.
  • PC Zone issue 89, May 2000, p. 57: Arcanum preview (“Jules Verne meets JRR Tolkien”); Cain, Boyarsky and Anderson left Interplay.
  • Laurence Scotford, Arcanum preview, PC Zone issue 95, November 2000, p. 46: “The founding trio is Tim Cain, the lead programmer/designer of Fallout, and Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson”.
  • Computer Gaming World issue 203, June 2001, pp. 60–62: Arcanum preview (the Fallout style; action-point bubbles) and “Steampunk Fellows”, questions to the Troika founders (Cain’s “100,000 man-hours”).
  • Edge issue 132, January 2004, p. 15: The Temple of Elemental Evil (PC, Atari, Troika) in its review scores.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines review, Computer Gaming World issue 248, February 2005: publisher Activision, developer Troika; the Source engine; “rough edges”; Los Angeles.
  • Retro Gamer issue 112, March 2013, p. 13: “Fallout creator Troika Games closes its doors for the final time after going bust”.
  • “Troika Games”, Wikipedia (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): founding on 1 April 1998; The Temple of Elemental Evil (Atari, 2003) and Bloodlines (Activision, 2004); closure on 24 February 2005 after failing to find funding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troika_Games
  • “Tim Cain”, Wikipedia (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): his roles on The Temple of Elemental Evil and Bloodlines; Carbine Studios; Pillars of Eternity; contract work for Obsidian from June 2020 and The Outer Worlds 2; the YouTube channel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cain
  • Matt Daniel, “WildStar design director Tim Cain joins Obsidian Entertainment”, Engadget, 12 October 2011 (web, secondary). https://www.engadget.com/2011/10/12/wildstar-design-director-tim-cain-joins-obsidian-entertainment/
  • Wireframe issue 17, June 2019, p. 17, and issue 24, October 2019, p. 6: The Outer Worlds directed by Cain and Boyarsky; Brian Patel on the “game directors”.
  • Jon Clarke, “Legendary developer Tim Cain is back at Obsidian Entertainment”, DayOne, 5 December 2025 (web, secondary): his return to full-time work at Obsidian, and Cain on Games. https://playday.one/2025/12/05/legendary-developer-tim-cain-is-back-at-obsidian-entertainment/
  • Jack Yarwood, “Fallout Creator Tim Cain Has A YouTube Channel”, Time Extension, 20 June 2023 (web, secondary): the first video on 27 April 2023, his age and reasons, and the subjects of the videos. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/06/fallout-creator-tim-cain-has-a-youtube-channel-and-its-a-treasure-trove-of-development-stories

See also

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