Todd Howard admits he stole his brother's Fallout 1 disc and still hasn't returned it

Todd Howard, director of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, confirmed in a recent Game Informer interview for an oral history of the series that he became a fan of the franchise back when the original 1997 game released. He also shared an amusing story about his first encounter with the cult RPG.

"I was at Bethesda at the time when [Fallout 1] came out. It's my brother who actually played it first. He's like, 'Have you played Fallout?' And I said, 'I haven't had the chance yet.' He said, 'You've gotta play it.'"

After that conversation, the director made a radical decision – he simply stole the disc from his brother.

"I actually stole his disc and never gave it back to him."

The game left a strong impression on him.

"I loved the vibe of that game."

Howard added that Fallout surpassed other similar projects like the tabletop Gamma World and computer game Wasteland.

"The rules of the world and the vibe of the world, they were just brilliant and so unique."

An interesting twist – Howard's praise for Fallout's unique ruleset is ironic, since the developers of the first game originally planned to use Steve Jackson's GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System). However, Jackson didn't approve of the game's excessive violence and pulled out of the collaboration, forcing the team to create their own SPECIAL system.