Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says the one thing he’d like to see from the series moving forward is an “actual good faction”: “Fallout trains you that everything’s gray”

Though original Fallout steward Tim Cain stepped away from the franchise ages ago, he still hopes it will one day introduce a “truly virtuous faction.” He isn’t taking shots at the groups populating recent entries—he just yearns to witness an unambiguously benevolent organization thriving after the apocalypse, partly because gamers would inevitably try to annihilate it on reflex.

Speaking on YouTube’s The Vile Eye, Cain—frequently hailed as the progenitor of Fallout after directing the debut title and aiding its first follow-up—was queried about novel villain archetypes he’d enjoy in a forthcoming installment. He possesses a firm concept, though it remains tucked inside a design bible he hasn’t unveiled to another soul.

“Skipping the specifics,” Cain remarks, “my perpetual wish for Fallout is a straight-up noble faction—one hundred percent altruistic. They cultivate crops, erect housing, hunt forgotten tech, maybe scavenge pre-war medicine, all to aid strangers. The narrative hook: constant distrust from every other outfit and from the player herself.”

Cain figures it may be tougher to foster that paranoia now that “folks will just wiki everything, yet I adore the notion of gamers assuming the faction’s hiding dark deeds—or slaughtering them outright—thinking, ‘That clinic was surely running horrific tests,’ when nope, they were saints. Practically every prior Fallout collective has been murky—which I enjoy—or outright vile.”

In his view, “Fallout teaches you to expect moral blur: the ‘heroes’ commit atrocities, the ‘villains’ believe they’re righteous. I figured flipping the script could be fascinating. Granted, the series mantra is ‘authority rots,’ so wouldn’t the leader of this pristine group eventually sour? Still, attempting it would be worthwhile.”

He likewise considers it a gauntlet for writers—akin to the stunt he pitched for the 1997 original: unique “idiot speech” lines for low-IQ avatars.

“I’d never spotted that in a digital RPG, though I’d trialed it at the tabletop. I challenged the team, ‘Can you script conversations for a downright dumb protagonist?’ They met that test; I bet they’d nail this one too.”

Fallout co-creator Tim Cain admits Bethesda enlarged the property, yet he’d have taken divergent paths: “Did they grow it how I would? Nope, not remotely, and that’s fine.”

Dustin Bailey hopped aboard GamesRadar as a Staff Writer in May 2022 and presently operates out of Missouri. He’s chronicled games—sprinkled with anime and pro-wrestling detours—since 2015, freelancing initially, then spending nearly five years newshound-ing at PCGamesN. The spark ignited somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic; nowadays you’ll catch him juggling retro replays, the newest blockbuster adventure, or a marathon haul across American Truck Simulator.