Tim Cain

Lore & Background

Cain was born on August 25, 1965, and was raised in a suburb of Alexandria, Virginia. His mother had worked for a local branch of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and around 1979, his mother brought him along by invitation to get together with several high-ranking officers from the U.S. Navy to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He attended the University of Virginia, and in 1989 received a master's degree in computer science at University of California, Irvine. He began working at Interplay Entertainment in 1991. He co-founded Troika Games in 1998 with former Fallout colleagues Jason Anderson and Leonard Boyarsky. He joined Carbine Studios when it was formed in 2005 as its programming director. He left Carbine Studios in July 2011. In 2011, Tim Cain joined Obsidian Entertainment as senior programmer. As of June 2020, Cain was no longer a full time employee of Obsidian, but still collaborated on The Outer Worlds 2, as well as for two other companies on a contract basis. On December 5, 2025, Tim announced on his YouTube channel that he had moved back to Southern California and returned to full time, in person employment with Obsidian. Cain came out as a gay man in the early 2000s. He married his husband Robert Land on July 14, 2011. He resided in the Seattle metropolitan area between 2020 and 2025, after previously living in the Los Angeles area for most of his career, and returned to Irvine located in Southern California in 2025. Cain is affected by hereditary color blindness.

Reader's Guide

Tim Cain is best known as the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of Fallout. He co-founded Troika Games and worked on Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. He later worked at Carbine Studios and Obsidian Entertainment, contributing to Pillars of Eternity and co-directing The Outer Worlds.

Did You Know?

• Cain's mother brought him to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with U.S. Navy officers around 1979, sparking his love for tabletop RPGs.
• He was the only employee on Fallout for the first six months of development.
• Cain left Fallout 2 months into development due to burnout and a cut in his bonus pay.
• He created a YouTube channel in 2011 and began regularly uploading videos in 2023.