Tim Cain, one of the key creators behind the original 1997 Fallout and the franchise at large, has re-joined Obsidian Entertainment.
In a video announcement on his personal YouTube channel, Cain announced the news, explaining he’d moved back to Southern California and will be a “full-time, in-person employee.” He also added, “I can’t talk about the project that I’m working on at Obsidian, just because that’s covered by NDA. Don’t bother guessing, you’re not going to guess right. I would probably say that I’m a lot less retired now.”
Cain was previously a part of Obsidian in 2011, where he worked on Pillars of Eternity and co-directed The Outer Worlds. He left the studio in 2020, but still worked on The Outer Worlds 2 as a contractor. Since then, he hasn’t joined any other studio in an official capacity, but began regularly uploading videos on his YouTube channel in 2023, discussing topics around the video game industry, development, and his own personal experiences.
Cain fully rejoining Obsidian is obviously a big deal, with a lot of question marks surrounding it. The studio has quickly become one of Xbox’s most prolific, releasing three full games in 2025 alone: Avowed, Grounded 2, and The Outer Worlds 2.
The roughly 300-person studio has been one of Xbox’s most productive acquisitions, and of course, Obsidian is also the studio behind the fan-favourite Fallout: New Vegas. While the inclination might be to think Cain is working on some kind of new Fallout game, in lieu of Bethesda being in the thick of The Elder Scrolls VI development, his “you’ll never guess” comment does seem to go against that. But Fallout’s popularity has never been higher because of the smash-hit success of the TV show.
Still, with Obsidian’s recent output, don’t expect any kind of announcement for a good bit.
