OG Fallout lead Tim Cain dusts off a trove of old development photos dating back to 1994 to show 'what development looked like in the '90s'

Fallout developer Tim Cain seated at computer wearing brown paper bag on head in the '90s — (Image credit: Tim Cain)

In a recent video on his YouTube channel, veteran RPG developer and project lead on the original Fallout, Tim Cain, offered a look at his collection of photos from the game's development between 1994 and 1997. The photos are not only a fun time capsule of mid to late '90s game development, but also show off how small the team behind one of the most influential CRPGs ever really was.

Cain has highlighted some of his photo collection in the past, but this video was specifically meant to show off "every photo that I own that shows any team member from the original Fallout between the years of 1994 and 1997," though he also threw in some personal family photos from the period. While talking about a Christmas picture from 1994, Cain mentioned that the Fallout team at the time consisted only of himself, designer/programmer Jason Taylor, and artist-designer Jason Anderson. Artist Leonard Boyarsky, who would go on to co-found Troika Games with Cain and Anderson, was not yet in the picture. In an earlier video about the timeline of Fallout's development, Cain described beginning work on Fallout solo in the middle of 1993, creating the earliest iteration of its iconic 2D isometric engine.

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Fallout's first full team photo showed just 9 people, and Cain estimates that it was taken around August 1995, with the team expanding to 11 developers by the middle of 1996. In a final team photo from 1997, the whole crew of 21 developers is present⁠—compare that to the nearly 500 people employed by Larian to make Baldur's Gate 3.

Interspersed throughout, Cain shared some candid photos of work at the old Interplay offices: Some spoofs and goofs, people bugging each other at their work stations, the good stuff. Particularly charming is a shot of Cain wearing a paper Burger King bag as a crown shortly before getting the news that he had somehow borked the latest development build of Fallout.

Cain also shared a previously circulated picture of two of the original "talking head" character sculpts for Fallout⁠—the in-game close-up sprites were created from pictures of physical sculpted models, sort of like stop-motion animation. The photographed sculpts of Larry and Morpheus were apparently displayed in the lobby of Interplay's offices, but it's unclear if any of them still survive today⁠—Interplay founder and former CEO Brian Fargo is still looking to add them to his personal collection, if any are still out there.

Cain's channel has been a real goldmine of RPG history, but he's also produced a lot of advice and process videos for newer developers, as well as some takes on current trends in the industry. Last week, Cain argued that violence will continue being the cornerstone of big RPGs as long as we keep buying them.

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Webcam photo of Tim Cain next to black and white photo of 9-person Fallout dev team circa 1995 — (Image credit: Tim Cain)

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.