Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says less is often more in game design: 'As a very wise designer once said to me, a game that includes everything is about nothing'

Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says less is often more in game design: ‘As a very wise designer once said to me, a game that includes everything is about nothing’ | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these RPG Cara Ellison, senior narrative designer on Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 before Paradox switched developers, discusses her love of Troika’s original RPG: ‘Everyone on the team helped really make that maximum goth’ Action Just Cause dev co-founder says the studio got too big and ‘numbers focused,’ so he quit and made a $25 open world crime brawler RPG ‘We lost things such as physics in games:’ The dev behind my most anticipated RPG thinks players are craving more interactive games, not just ‘moving around in a static 3D environment’ Fallout Fallout was a ‘B-tier product’ that lost both the licenses it was banking on and had its lead dev joking, ‘In a week, we’re going to be asking whether people want fries with their meal,’ but now he thinks those trials ‘turned out to be positives’ Horror ‘Art and science and procreation, that’s about all life is good for:’ Two former freeware developers are still trying to keep it weird in an era when companies ‘sell games to people in 5-second clips’ The Elder Scrolls Skyrim’s co-lead designer says Starfield’s main problem is that it never fully cohered as a game: ‘It was a releasable game, but it wasn’t the best’ Fallout ‘It took about 5 years’ for people to start liking Fallout: New Vegas, says Josh Sawyer, and even longer for Obsidian to see that ‘players actually liked the design choices we had made’ RPG I didn’t realize how important headbob was until I played an RPG without it Fallout Bethesda originally thought Fallout 3’s metro system should go all over the map, then realised running through miles of tunnels was dull as hell: ‘Being realistic sometimes isn’t fun’ RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is PC Gamer’s GOTY because it ‘trusts’ players and takes them seriously, says Warhorse co-founder: ‘I think you can only eat so much popcorn’ Adventure ‘We never had plans to update Peak at all’: Aggro Crab reveals that it doesn’t want ‘to be a studio that works on one game forever’ Fallout Todd Howard says Bethesda really didn’t expect people to hate the way Fallout 3 ended with a full stop: ‘We thought this is Fallout, it’s great! People hated it!’ Puzzle Inkle co-founder says WW2 puzzler TR-49 is ‘our best launch, ever, in 14 years,’ and they made it in just 9 months Assassin’s Creed Former Assassin’s Creed director doesn’t think the current way of making big budget games is ‘tenable’: ‘I think the future lies in smaller teams’ RPG Fallout designer Tim Cain reckons his subsequent 3 projects were buggy games ‘or, as people called them, flawed masterpieces’ because ‘we had a lot of feature ideas, we did not edit ourselves at all, and we were a small team’ PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Resident EvilArc RaidersBest PC gearGame Quizzes Gaming Industry Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says less is often more in game design: ‘As a very wise designer once said to me, a game that includes everything is about nothing’ News By Lincoln Carpenter published 2 March 2026 As hard as it is to admit, an idea isn’t necessarily worth implementing just because it sounds cool. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Tim Cain) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter In a new YouTube video detailing game design pitfalls that regularly derail game development projects, Fallout co-creator and veteran RPG designer Tim Cain said one of the most common issues in game design stems from neglecting an overlooked skill: Knowing when to stop.”As a very wise designer once told me, ‘A game that includes everything is about nothing,'” said Cain, who recently returned from “semi-retirement” to resume full-time work at Obsidian. Design Potholes – YouTube Watch On Trying to fit too much into one game is what Cain calls a “design pothole”: a problem that’s easy enough to avoid if experience has taught you to keep an eye out for it, but could metaphorically “wreck your transmission or blow out a tire” if you’re going full speed ahead. Related articles ‘I’m over making other people really wealthy with my own creations’: Fallout co-creator Tim Cain isn’t interested in making a new IP or a sequel to one of