Today's devs can learn from the "forgotten wisdom" of 1980s games, Fallout designer says

The tech in today's consoles and PCs allows devs to design games with impressive graphics, but has something been lost along the way? There's an argument that the luxury of powerful processors and GPUs plus masses of memory can cause bad habits (we've all heard the arguments over optimisation in Unreal Engine 5 games (or lack off).

Now one veteran developer has revealed the things that he thinks today's devs can learn from the tight and efficient games of the 1980s (see our picks of the best retro game consoles and the best retro handheld games consoles if you want to relive them – or check them out for the first time).

Lessons From Old Games - YouTube

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Timothy Cain is one of the co-creators and designers of the Fallout series. In the above video on his YouTube channel, he answers a question from someone who asked whether Timothy thought there was any “lost wisdom” that devs can learn from old games.

Timothy's answer was a resounding affirmative. He goes on to outline the challenges and solutions that were inherent in making games in the 1980s. He thinks the limitations faced by 1980s game devs, including limited memory to store graphics and even text, plus a lack of standards in hardware and software, required them to be more focused. It also required “hyper-efficient code”.

“It was you write efficient code or your game doesn't work on the Atari,” he points out.

He also criticises the modern tendency for design by committee and suggests that many of today's games don't know what they want to be and try to be everything to everyone.

Timothy also notes that 80s games were 100% gameplay, with no cut scenes, long conversations or camera changes. They also had very focused stories, with simple goals and simple settings.

He thinks some of today's indie games still respect this approach because of the limitations involved in solo development, and he suggests this more focused approach can lead to a better-executed game.

Looking to get started yourself? See our pick of the best game development software and the best laptop for game development.