Fallout co-creator recalls the series was considered a B-tier side project compared to D&D games

There was a time when Fallout was seen as more of a cute developer hobby than the multi-billion-dollar franchise Bethesda ultimately helped turn it into. RPG co-creator Tim Cain shared this in Game Informer's comprehensive oral history of the Fallout series.

Cain recalls the early days of Fallout at Interplay – the studio where the franchise was born before Bethesda purchased it in 2004. However, that home wasn't particularly welcoming:

We were a B-tier side project at Interplay. They got the D&D license about six months to a year after we started, and they're like, 'Okay, that's the A-tier. Those are the money teams.' And we're off in the corner.

Fallout designer Leonard Boyarsky remembers the situation similarly:

It was very much like, here's our team off in the corner, and there's the rest of Interplay.

However, Boyarsky is grateful for that arrangement:

I was aware enough to know this is weird in a really good way. This is like we're making an indie game, but we have a steady job, and we have steady paychecks, and we're not trying to find a publisher for it, because once they saw what we were doing – and they appreciated what we were doing – they're just like, 'Well, we have these much more important games! The Dungeons and Dragons games are licensed to print money. Just don't bother anybody. Just go over there and do your thing and it'll be great.'

Back then, no one knew Fallout would become one of gaming's biggest franchises.