Fallout was almost a clone of Diablo because of Interplay's marketing department

In a new vlog on his YouTube channel, veteran RPG designer and leader of Fallout 1, Tim Cain, revealed fascinating details about the pressure that the publisher Interplay exerted to transform Fallout into a real-time action game, similar to Diablo, instead of maintaining its turn-based RPG format. According to Cain, in 1996, a year before the release, Interplay’s marketing department was convinced that the success of Diablo demanded that Fallout be equally agile and dynamic.

Fallout is not Diablo and it doesn’t need to be

Despite the insistence, Cain opposed the idea and was able to withstand the pressure by pointing out the large amount of time and resources that such a drastic change would require. Still, he shared his hypothetical vision of how a real-time system could have been implemented in Fallout, although he reaffirmed that he would never have done it either in 1997 or in 2025. This episode illustrates how the impact of Diablo negatively affected the perception of isometric perspective RPGs during that period.

Cain also highlighted that, interestingly, Diablo was originally conceived as a turn-based game, but switched to real-time just six months before its release, highlighting the flexibility and creative decisions that can arise in the video game industry. Following Fallout, Cain and other developers founded Troika Games, where they released Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, a title that, while retaining elements of Fallout, incorporated a real-time combat mode.

In Cain’s discussion about the possible modifications he would have implemented in a real-time Fallout 1, he concluded that, despite any possible adjustments, the final result would not compare favorably to the classic RPG we know today. “I would never make a real-time Fallout, but if I had to, these would be the changes I would make,” Cain stated.

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