After 28 Years, Fallout’s Creator Settles the Debate Over Who Dropped the First Nuclear Bomb

Certain details were self-evident to the development team.

Fallout creator Tim Cain recently revisited the game’s lore. He explained that the developers didn’t document every detail in the design notes and often proceeded on the assumption that “X is true.”

Those elements weren’t stated overtly—there isn’t a dedicated cutscene, recording, or NPC that says, “Look, event X happened here.” The developers’ intent was communicated through narrative, level design, and NPC behavior.

Tim clarified that his interpretations are not strictly canon—Bethesda now decides what is official.

He recalled that, years ago in an interview, he asserted that China started the Great War by dropping the first nuclear bomb.

At the time the interviewer reacted with surprise, and Tim was surprised by that reaction. He had assumed it was “obvious,” and was taken aback to learn that people had debated who made the first strike for many years.

Tim Cain explained why the developers assumed China carried out the initial nuclear strike:

“In the original game the United States created the FEV virus (Forced Evolutionary Virus) and conducted biological weapons research. They shouldn’t have been doing that. Furthermore, the U.S. signed a United Nations treaty promising not to. I believe you can find that in the game.

China discovered that the U.S. was engaged in those activities. How? Through espionage. They learned the U.S. was continuing the research, and the U.S. said, ‘Oops, our mistake. We won’t do that anymore.’ But in reality they continued, merely moving the work to another facility— the hidden base where you find the ZAX supercomputer.

So they knew some of it, and there are logs that explain this […] When China realized the U.S. was still [working on the virus], they tried diplomacy and spying, but none of it succeeded. So they launched a nuclear strike. The U.S. retaliated. Other nations followed with nuclear strikes because all they saw were incoming missiles.”

“Technically, China began the Great War by launching the first nuclear bomb. But one could argue that, technically, the U.S. initiated it by conducting illicit biological weapons research and repeatedly lying about having stopped.”

Source: iXBT.games