Each of us has our gaming blindspots. For me, one of the glaring ones is Fallout, a franchise I have played occasionally but never really took to like I have others. Yet by the time the credits rolled on the first episode of Prime Video’s Fallout TV show, which begins streaming tonight on Amazon’s service, I wanted nothing more than to dive back into Bethesda’s rich world.
Fallout is Prime Video’s latest series to hit its streaming service, and it follows in the footsteps of the video game adaptations before it, most recently Max’s excellent The Last of Us. It’s with this mixed history that I, like many others, was concerned about how Amazon’s adaptation would fare - would it be a good example of adaptations done right, or will we shrug our shoulders and move on, another storied game world wasted on Hollywood?
Well, after watching all eight episodes over the last week for this review, I can honestly say that the Fallout series is, by and large, a masterclass of adapting a game to the big screen. So much, in fact, that I’ve been unable to stop thinking about Fallout in general since the last credit sequence rolled on the final episode.
That Fallout Feel
Set 219 years after the bombs fell in the Great War, Fallout centers on Los Angeles and depicts both the events leading up to the bombs dropping, as well as the ramifications of those decisions two centuries later. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s team had such a wealth of information to draw on when building their version of the Wasteland, the Vaults, and more, and it’s a testament to the show’s writing staff’s ability to both make Fallout’s lore feel accessible and deep. As someone who isn’t the biggest Fallout fan, I never felt lost, even having just ancillary knowledge of the world from my few times jumping into New Vegas or Fallout 4.
The story centers on three main characters: Lucy, a naive Vault Dweller who comes to the surface to save her father, Hank; The Ghoul, a gunslinging bounty hunter who once was the celebrated actor Cooper Howard before the bombs fell; and Maximus, a Brotherhood of Steel Initiate eager to find a place to belong. While the Fallout series has pretty much exclusively been told from the perspective of an emerging Vault Dweller, it was nice to see and experience other viewpoints and perspectives throughout the seasons’ runtime. Finding out what motivates someone like The Ghoul, who has survived the bombs and lived in the Wasteland doing God knows what for 219 years, was a particular highlight, and even watching Lucy’s transformation from do-goody Vault Dweller to someone who has to compromise her values just to survive on the surface kept me glued to my seat.
By the end, I wanted to hop into Fallout 76 or Fallout: New Vegas and try to create my own character and figure out how I would survive the apocalypse. It’s these perspectives that really connected me with the games—each character could, in their own right, be an archetype a player could choose to play in Fallout.
I also love the fact that the story doesn’t just leave the Vault itself unmonitored. We see frequent scenes of the aftermath of the circumstances that lead Lucy to exit Vault 33, and it’s such a great glimpse into the Vault Experiment and how Vault society handles both grief and hardship.
But, like all Fallout games, the world is the star. The Wasteland that Los Angeles becomes is beautifully realized. The run-down town of Filly, its walls crammed with street vendors selling everything from snake oil to grilled iguana, reminded me of the first time I stepped foot in Diamond City in Fallout 4’s Boston. The downtown area, built from scrap ranging from simple sheet metal to broken-down USAF rockets, is a particular highlight, and it’s a fantastic setting for one of the season’s pivotal and best gunslinger moments. I’m fairly certain I watched this scene like, seven times in two days.
As someone generally familiar with Los Angeles, I would find myself hunting for familiar locations, such as Hollywood Boulevard or the Santa Monica Pier. Just watching the show gave me this unmistakable desire to explore, something Bethesda games have historically done well.
In this sense, it felt unmistakably Fallout. It helps that Jonathan Nolan is such a fan of the games himself, but also having Todd Howard and Bethesda Game Studios involved in the production is a massive boon to the series. Everything looked like it could have been ripped right out of the games themselves, and some shots felt like I was just watching a really realistic-looking version of one of the games.
Seeing Lucy step out of a harrowing situation with leather pads strapped to her body reminded me of the first time I swapped to third-person mode in Fallout 76 and saw my “leather armor” was nothing more than padding strung together across my Vault Dweller jumpsuit with nothing more than shoestrings. While I wish the Brotherhood of Steel’s Power Armor looked more menacingly metallic, it does a great job of selling that power fantasy of donning my own armor and doing battle with a Deathclaw.
Speaking of mutants and monsters, can we talk about the Gulpers having human fingers on the inside of their mouths now? I literally shuddered when I realized that. Giant roaches are creepy, but that was downright unsettling.
This is all supported by incredible set and costume design. Vault 33 looked like it could have been built underground, with Amazon sparing no expense in bringing this iconic location to life. The Wasteland was desolate, foreboding, yet eerie and, at times, calming. Juxtaposed against this desolation are the flashback scenes from before the Great War, and the retro 1950s aesthetic pops on screen. Also, those car doors that just slide into the body of the vehicle? I really hope every major car manufacturer is watching this - so fricking cool. Cars from that era were some of the best designed, you know?
Underneath it all is an amazing soundtrack from Game of Thrones and Westworld composer Ramin Djawadi. Mixing original ambient music with themes from Inon Zur's incredibly iconic game soundtracks, the music lays a foundation for each scene. Couple this with era-specific tracks, some of which are staples of the series now, and it helps sell that Fallout-feel.
Uncovering Its History
War never changes. This is a theme that permeates Fallout throughout each entry in the series. It permeates the show as well, especially as we get a glimpse at the background of the world before the bombs ended the Sino-American War - and the world as people knew it then.
Prime Video’s adaptation is able to tell a more rounded story that explores the themes of Fallout: unchecked corporate greed, how society survives after it falls, striving for the greater good, and more.
Walton Goggins’ Ghoul character is a link to both timelines, as he has survived the bombing of Los Angeles and turned into the Ghoul that travels the wasteland two centuries later. This link lets Nolan and Joy’s writers really explore the backstory, and the way it’s all tied to the present day is nothing short of masterful.
It also helps bring people who don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of Fallout’s extensive lore along without getting lost. While I do know more than your average viewer, thanks to my proximity and limited time playing the games, I don’t know everything. Fallout does a good job of showing, not just telling, what happens through the eyes of Cooper Howard in the past and everyone from the viewpoints of the main cast and even some of its supporting characters.
Some of my favorite scenes include Norm, Lucy’s brother, and Chet, her cousin who is besotted with Lucy. They are both still back in Vault 33, dealing with the ramifications of the Dweller’s harrowing experience that sends Lucy to the surface and their role in helping her get out. Watching the internal politics play out in the Vault is fascinating, especially when considering the whole Vault Experiment that Vault Tec and the various companies that made up the former United States of America set up before the bombs fell.
Fallout shows how decisions made even centuries before can have ramifications in the distant future, and it’s a compelling look at the rich universe RPG players have explored now for decades. At times, Fallout can be gory, intensely so, and other times, it can have an incredibly grim outlook on things. But it's also self-aware, poking fun at the circumstances and retaining that comedic charm and whimsy that the games have.
There were moments that had me on the verge of tears - both from the intensity of the scene unfolding but also from laughing at hilarious moments.
Like Netfix’s Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners and Max’s The Last of Us before it, Prime Video’s Fallout could be a spark that brings even more players to the franchise, eager to explore more of the world as we gear up for what looks like will be its inevitable second season.
I know I’m one of them, having spent hours since I first watched Season 1 in Fallout 76 exploring the Appalachian mountains years after its initial mixed launch. Prime Video’s Fallout has me more interested in the world Bethesda has built since it took over the franchise from initial developer Obsidian almost two decades ago than I ever have been. And it’s not slowing down, especially as the series ended on some pretty crucial cliffhangers, setting up a potentially action-packed second season.
For me, I just hope we see Los Angeles return in Fallout 5 or even as a Fallout 76 DLC at some point in the future. It’s all fun to watch Lucy, Maximus, and the Ghoul explore its wasteland, but I want to dive headlong myself - a testament to the incredible work Fallout has done in selling its world with this initial season.
Fallout on Prime Video debuts tonight, April 10th, at 6pm PT.
