Miserable news for my Fallout ghoul fanfiction: franchise co-creator Tim Cain says only IP owners determine what counts as video game "canon." Developers don't have much input into the matter, and fan opinions are roughly treated the same way. "Let's assume that you're going to say, 'OK, when the majority of players think something is canon, it's canon,'" Cain continues. Then he asks, "are you sure it's the majority of players feel that way? Because what it probably is is the loudest people on the internet, the most frequent posters on the internet, and also some of the most entitled people on the internet." You can keep debating your interpretations of Dogmeat as religious metaphor on r/Fallout, Cain suggests, but saying it doesn't make it true. Fallout co-creator Tim Cain acknowledges Bethesda made the franchise bigger, but he would have done things differently: "Did they expand it the way I would have? No, not at all, that's OK" Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says "leaving some mystery" and undeveloped lore in games is important so players are keen to play follow-ups and sequels: "If you tell everything, players will want nothing" Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says the one thing he'd like to see from the series moving forward is an "actual good faction": "Fallout trains you that everything's gray" That said, a developer like Cain has limited input on what ends up being franchise "canon," too. While Cain acknowledges that dev intent often "aligns with canon and many times also with player interpretation. But it doesn't have to." Meanwhile, Cain explains, if the Fallout IP owner "says that Harold is a ghoul, he's a ghoul. If they say he's a mutant, he's a mutant," Cain says. "I'm not canon. and the team wasn't canon because even though there's a lot of correlation between what we thought was true when we made it and what is canon, that correlation is not 100%." Any problems, take it up with IP guardian Bethesda. Or relax with our list of the best Fallout games, ranked.