Fallout’s original names were, erm, interesting
Fallout. It’s simple, it rolls off the tongue, and it communicates, instantly, what the game is going to be about. But back in the early development days of the RPG game, and long before New Vegas, Fallout 4, and the 3D transformation courtesy of Bethesda, the open-world apocalypse sim had some far different, and rather choice, alternate possible titles. If we ever giggled at ‘Skyrim’ or thought ‘Starfield’ was at all unusual, we’ve got a newfound appreciation for how tough it is naming games – Fallout included.
We’re going back now to mid 1996, back before Fallout had its official name. At developer Interplay, it was referred to internally as ‘Vault 13,’ after the underground bunker that forms the game’s starting point. Co-creator Tim Cain explains how this presented a problem – if Vault 13 ever got a sequel, and naturally Interplay was hoping it might, ‘Vault 13: 2’ or other variations sounded a little messy.
“It’s very very hard to come up with a name for a game, especially a new game with new mechanics, a new setting, and new characters,” Cain says. “By the late ‘90s, there was already this vibe that a lot of words were being overused in game names, words like ‘dark’ or ‘shadow’ or ‘blood.’ These were starting to show up so much that we would almost make fun and be like ‘let’s call ours Dark World or Dim Place, or Souls of Blood.”
Cain explains how the original prototypes of Fallout were simply called ‘Testbed.’ Later, in honor of the eponymous table-top gaming system, builds of Fallout were labeled as ‘GURPS,’ before eventually switching to ‘Vault 13.’
“I said ‘if we ever make a sequel, we cannot call this game Vault 13, because what would the sequel be?’” Cain continues. “Vault 14? More Vault 13? Beyond Vault 13?
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