Actor Ron Perlman is known in Fallout fandom for delivering the now-iconic voice line, “War. War never changes.” Perlman will forever be associated with this line and Fallout in general, and now the actor has revealed how he was compensated for the original Fallout game.
“They invited me to do the very first Fallout and gave me $40 and a sandwich,” he said in a recent appearance on The Joe Vulpis Podcast, as reported by Dexerto.
The original Fallout game, which was made by Interplay, was released in 1997. It wasn’t until some time later that Perlman became aware of the phenomenon that became Fallout.
“A year and a half later, I get a call, ‘Hey, you remember Fallout?’ No. ‘Well, there’s a second one.’ I go, ‘Why?’ ‘Because the first one went through the f**king roof,'” he remembered thinking. “I go, ‘Really? Cool.’ Do the second one, then the third, fourth, and now it’s a whole brand.”
Also in the interview, Perlman said he’s never played the Fallout games or spent any time with the development teams. “No. I did a couple of lines, got my $40 and my sandwich, and went home,” he said.
Crucially, Perlman did not disclose what kind of sandwich he got for his work on Fallout.
Fallout 2 was developed by Black Isle Studios, before Bethesda swooped in and bought the rights to the series in 2007 and made Fallout 3, released in 2008, as its first entry in the series. Bethesda would go on to release Fallout 4 in 2015 and Fallout 76 in 2018 (2010’s Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian and published by Bethesda). Fallout 5 is now in development, but it’s not coming anytime soon.
On the more immediate horizon, it’s been reported that Bethesda is working on remakes of Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
In other Fallout news, Prime Video’s Fallout TV series is airing now, with Episode 5 having just released today, January 14. Three more episodes are coming before the series wraps up on February 4. A third season was announced in May 2025, prior to Season 2’s debut.