Fallout Creator Reveals Why a Remaster Is Unlikely

With the success of Amazon’s Fallout streaming series, as well as the recent Oblivion Remastered, it’s only natural for gamers to wonder if Bethesda might remaster some of its earlier Fallout games. That might be more likely for some Fallout games compared to others. In a recent YouTube video, Fallout creator Tim Cain listed several reasons we might not see a remaster of the original game, including decisions made by the IP’s original owner, Interplay Entertainment. When Cain left the company in 1998, Interplay ordered him to destroy the source code for the game, which was apparently common at the company at the time. Cain obliged the request, also destroying early prototypes he’d worked on.

“When I left Interplay, they said, ‘You better not have any copies of this.’ I destroyed every copy of the source code I had. I went so far to destroy it that I even destroyed early prototypes and libraries, which means I can’t even get some of my older, personal ‘toy projects’ that I was working on at home to compile anymore,” said Cain.

While that would seem to be a pretty big hurdle to overcome, Insider Gaming notes there is some hope in that regard. Interplay co-founder Rebecca Heineman revealed to VideoGamer earlier this month that she “snapshotted” the source code for not just the original Fallout, but also the sequel. Heineman has expressed an interest in releasing the source code on GitHub, and previously did so with the source code for the 3DO version of the original DOOM. She had to get permission from id Software before doing so, and she would similarly need the permission of Bethesda before releasing the Fallout source code.

Heineman having the source code for Fallout seems to nullify one of the biggest issues standing in the way of a remaster, but it’s not the only one. In his YouTube video, Cain went into detail about music licensing issues, bugs from the original version, and elements that haven’t aged well, such as the original user interface. One YouTube user compared Fallout‘s necessary adjustments and changes to the Ship of Theseus paradox, suggesting that a remaster might end up being too different from the original game as a result.

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As Bethesda proved with Oblivion Remastered, there’s a way to take a beloved game and make it accessible and enjoyable for modern audiences. It remains to be seen whether we’ll ever actually see that happen with Fallout, but if Bethesda and Microsoft see the value in such a project, it could become more likely. There’s been a huge interest in Fallout content since the show’s release, and newcomers have been forced to play older games in the series since Fallout 5 seems to be very far out. For that reason, a remaster of Fallout would hold a lot of appeal for both those who played it back in the day, as well as newcomers. Thankfully, Fallout remains readily available on Steam, for those who still wish to play it in its original form.

Would you like to see a remake of Fallout? Or do you think the developers would have to change too much? Share your thoughts with me directly on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!