Fallout co-author reveals how the first Fallout got its name and what other options were

These days, the name Fallout is synonymous with Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG series, but for the original game’s development team in the summer of 1996, things were far from clear.

Image Source: Bethesda Softworks

Tim Cain, a game designer and co-author of Fallout, spoke about the difficulties of choosing a name for the very first Fallout in a new video on YouTube. According to him, choosing a title for a game under development is not an easy task.

These “one or two words” should ideally convey the essence of the game, not be strangers or “hackneyed” (like, for example, Dark or Blood in the 90s), not have unwanted connotations or add up to an awkward acronym.

Among the options from the advertising department was, for example, Biohazard – the Japanese name for Resident Evil (image source: Bethesda Softworks)

At first, the executable file of the future Fallout bore functional names like testbed and gurps (after the team received license of the same name), however, at the start of work on the entourage, it was renamed to vault13 (the key shelter in the game).

For the final title of the game, Vault 13 was a poor fit (a numbered sequel would be a problem), so Kane decided to have an hour and a half brainstorm with the team. It resulted in a dozen variations of the title, including:

• The Vault, Vault 13, Out of the Vault, Vault 666 и Outside the Vault;
• Ground/Zero и Ground Zero;
• Survivors и The Chosen Ones;
• Radstorm (Kaine’s idea);
• Warriors of the Apocalypse и Doomsday Warrior;
• Nuclear Winter и Nuclear Summer;
• After the Bomb и After the Collapse;
• Hiroshima: Revisited;
• Remains of the Day;
• Devastated Earth, Dying Earth и Earth A.D.;
• Fallout;
• The Rust Age и Static Age;
• Future Past;
• Deadglow;
• After Effects/FX;
• Devolution;
• The Surface и The Surfacing;
• Moribund World, World Gone Mad, The New World, The World Outside и Return to the World;
• Outside;
• Wasteland 2.

Kane initially did not like the name Fallout, since this period had already passed in the game world, however, after reading the list of “candidates”, the co-author of the game, Brian Fargo, advised him to use it.

Kane wanted to think, but the next morning he came to the conclusion that Fallout sounds extremely good, and proposed this option to the team. The decision was unanimous, but the renaming of the executable file dragged on for a couple of weeks.

The subtitle of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, by the way, came up with Kane (image source: GOG)