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Fallout 3 always has been and forever will be drowning in the color green – a visual hue that game director Todd Howard was very insistent on getting right – but co-creator of the series, Tim Cain, was none the wiser before the game came out because he's colorblind.
Bethesda has previously spoken at length about Fallout 3's "great green debate," and how if art lead Istvan Pely tweaked it at all in the middle of development, Howard would be "like, 'You changed the green.'" Producer Craig Lafferty previously commented that he "lost count" of "the amount of times we redid the color green" – which is pretty funny considering how controversial the ever-present hue was (and still is) amongst fans. But Fallout veteran Cain – for obvious reasons – didn't even notice.
Speaking in a recent interview with Game Informer, Cain recalls being invited by Howard to have a look at Bethesda's first Fallout game at E3 2008, and being impressed by the devs' take on Washington, D.C. and its landmarks. "I grew up right outside of Washington, D.C., so when Todd invited me up to see Fallout 3 at E3 2008 – this was before it shipped – I was blown away because I was like, 'Wow, that looks like the Metro station! And that there's the Washington Monument!'" He remembers, before adding: "And I'm colorblind, so the whole greenish tint thing didn't apply to me. [laughs]"
Even if Cain was aware and took exception to the radioactive hues, I'm not sure Howard could have been dissuaded from the idea anyway, based on other devs' previous comments.
"Todd would call out, 'I don't think that's the right green. I think you should take another look at it,'" Pely once recalled. "And I'm like, I'm pretty sure it is.'"
