Years before Fallout 76, the RPG's co-creator had doubts about making a Fallout MMO because it "wasn't designed to have other players"

Fallout 76
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Part of what makes 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fallout games special is the sense of loneliness, that you're the only one with the weight of the 🥀world on your shoulders. That all changed in Fallout 76, but before that, original developer ൩Interplay toyed with the idea of making a Fallout MMO, and one of the original co-creators had some serious doubts.

In an interview with our friends over at , ꧒Tim Cain explains why he doesn't think Fallout work♛s as an MMO. The idea came after he'd already left Interplay, but during one of several meetings he had with the company, he said, "I'm super cautious about this and for multiple reasons."

One of them was the fact the acronym would spell out FOOL, but also, "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 are 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.'"

Being alone is so core to Fallout that three of the four mainline games actually name our character in a way that realꦺly drives home how isolated we are. Fallout 2 has the Chosen One, Fallout 3 has the Lone Wander꧋er, and Fallout 4 has the Lone Survivor.

"I'm like, 'I'm just telling you, Fallout wasn't designed to have other players. The Vault Dweller felt special, felt like the weight of the future of the Vault depended on them. You just can't throw in a dozen others, 100 others, 1,000 others, and think it'll be fine.' I think Fallout 76 feels very different [from] Fallout 3 or 4, for no other reason than you're playi🌠ng with 1,000 other people," he adds.

Cain highlights an issue I've long had with most MMOs. I don't believe I'm the special chosen one destined to save the world when I see dozens of chosen ones all crowding the same quest-giving NPCs as me. It completely t🐬akes me out of the story the game is trying to tell.

Interplay didn't appreciate Cain's feedback, though. "They were like, 'You're being very negative,'" he says. "And I used to repeatedly go, 'I'm not saying don't d🌱o this. I'm saying you have your work cut ou🅠t for you, and you're making decisions that are making your work harder. So don't get mad at me.'"

I can actually see a Fallout MMO working if the story was centered on a Vault designed to repopulate the US after the bombs fell. Thousands of Vault Dwellers being let loose on the Wasteland, all working together sounds like an interesting variation on the formula. And Cain has said previously he wanted to try 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:different genres for Fallout.

The PC Gamer article does note that Fallout 76 is focused on rebuilding civilization, but I've never played it, so now I'm thinking I should give it a whirl. I was put off by all the issues at launch, but maybe it went the N🌳o Man's Sky route and improved over the years.

If you're hungry for more Fallout, check our ranking of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Fallout games ever. My favorite is Fallout 3 because it made me feel properly lonely and has such a stellar atmosphere.

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadaꦡr. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing𒁃 for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.