The Fallout subreddit reportedly deleted a post sharing franchise co-creator Tim Cain’s comments that the series is not a critique of capitalism.
A screenshot from Fallout (1997), Interplay Inc.
Cain recently shared his thoughts in the comment section of his most recent YouTube upload titled “Capitalism.”
A user commented on the video writing, “This is interesting. I believe that in a capitalist environment, those with greater financial power will always try to capitalize the audience’s behavior, one way or another, more and more so in times like this when they hear and watch everything we do. But I’d agree that the public’s behavior of trying to get away with petty stuff actually helps the capitalist system to stay in place.”
He then questioned, “Was there any of this ever present in your original ideas for Fallout? To me the game struck as a critique on capitalist/corporative greed (Vault-Tec and others) and on excessive militarization, but I’ve seen on some articles that you have debunked this. How much of that is true?”
Cain responded, “Critique of capitalism was never the point of Fallout. In fact, the game went out of its way to mention that other countries like China were also behaving terribly. If anything, Fallout is a comment that war is inevitable given basic human nature.”
Tim Cain on YouTube
Cain added in a follow-up, “I don’t think I have any themes that run in common in all my games (maybe mistrust of power), but as you’ve seen, people will interpret my games in all kinds of ways. And that’s ok. Everyone brings their own perspective, and a story can mean different things to different people.”
Tim Cain on YouTube
As reported by LegacyKillaHD on X, a post featuring a screenshot of Cain’s initial comment along with a message that reads, “Some of you need to understand this” was deleted from the Fallout subreddit.
Reddit mods are deleting one of the Fallout creators remarks that the game is about war not capitalism. pic.twitter.com/7Eu65K2JU8
— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) August 22, 2024
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These comments from Cain come about a month after he addressed whether he would be interested in returning to Fallout. In a video upload to his channel he explained how the question, “Would I work on Fallout again?” is a multilayered question.
He said, “There’s a lot of different questions being asked there. Are you asking me would I want to remake Fallout as a 3D game? Are you asking me would I want to make a Fallout offshot, you know, like Fallout: New Vegas is. It’s not numerical one of the Fallouts, it’s just, ‘Here’s Fallout in a new place.’ Do I want to make Fallout 5?”
He continued, “So the answer is complicated because it’s not what you think. I’m not talking about, ‘Yeah, but it depends on what kind of authority I have or it depends on who’s in charge or whatever.’ No, it has nothing [to do] with that.”
Cain later stated, “The TLDW is that every RPG I ever made offered me something new and different that got me interested in making it. It had nothing to do with money, power, authority, role on the game. It was the game itself that offered me something interesting that made me go, ‘Ooo I want to do that. I’ve never done that.'”
A screenshot from Fallout 2 (1998), Black Isle Studios
After briefly going over his career and explaining why he decided to work on the games that he did, Cain said, “If someone came to me and said, ‘You want to make a Fallout game? My answer is, ‘Well, what’s new? I didn’t even want to make Fallout 2, why would I want to make a new Fallout game. What’s different about it?'”
He added, “Would this be something I’d even be interested in doing because it’s different?”
Cain reiterated as he concluded the video, “So, when people ask me, ‘Would you work on Fallout?’ The very first question out of my mouth would be, ‘What’s new about it? And if you don’t have an immediate answer, if you have to go, ‘Well, we may put in a new perk.’ Yeah, I’m probably not interested. So that’s probably as close an you’ll ever get from me on whether or not I would work on Fallout.”
A screenshot from Fallout (1997), Interplay Inc.
What do you make of the Fallout subreddit deleting the post showing Cain’s comments?
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