Tim Cain, the lead developer of the original Fallout, expressed regret over the loss of early development materials. His departure from Interplay included an order to destroy his copies of initial builds and notes from meetings. As a result, many crucial elements—including the source code and certain artwork—were lost. Fortunately, Rebecca Heineman, one of the founders of Interplay, retained the source code for both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. In an interview with VideoGamer, she revealed her archival efforts during her time at the company. In 1993, as part of a CD collection featuring ten years of games, she assembled the anthology using her copies of the source code, showing how some were negligent during backup processes.

“I made it a quest to snapshot everything and archive it on CD-ROMs,” Heineman shared in her recollection. “When I left Interplay in 1995, I had copies of every game we produced, including Fallout 1 and 2.”

Heineman has previously made other game source codes publicly available and aims to do the same for Fallout—but this requires permission from Bethesda. As the studio has recently engaged positively with the gaming community, many hope for further good news regarding these classic RPGs.