Amazon Prime’s Fallout series is another entry in the treacherous realm of live-action video game adaptations. While not a perfect show all-in-all, Amazon’s new hit series is a stunning example of video game TV done right. Following the mixed bag of Halo Season 2 and the near-shot-for-shot recreation of The Last of Us, Fallout boldly creates a series set within the game’s canon instead of replacing or creating its own timeline.
An 8-episode affair, Fallout follows three protagonists through the post-apocalyptic wasteland over 200 years after total nuclear annihilation ravaged America. There’s the happy-go-lucky, adorably naive Vault Dweller Lucy, a stand-in for the games’ typical protagonists, the Brotherhood of Steel initiate Maximus and The Ghoul Cooper Howard.
Each character’s stories revolve around one central key item, a device that has the potential to change The Wasteland forever. Lucy needs this item to save her dad, The Ghoul needs it to secure an unparalleled bounty and Maximus needs it to secure his standing in the cultish Brotherhood of Steel.
However, like every Fallout story, the main quest is far from the only adventure we see in Amazon’s series. As The Ghoul tells us partway through the series, the wasteland has a Golden Rule: “Thou shalt get sidetracked by random bullshit every goddamn time.” As a result, we get to see a lot more of Fallout’s decimated version of Los Angeles, from the scrappy small town of Filly to an organ-farming facility to the city of Shady Sands.
Amazon’s Fallout show is a remarkable adaptation in that it feels like it actually belongs to the Fallout universe. It’s not like, say, Illumination’s Super Mario Bros. Movie where the iconography is perfect but the story takes weird changes for a more Hollywood feel. It’s Fallout through and through with hilarious dark humour, political satire, over-the-top hyperviolence and a surprising reverence for its source material.
That’s not to say that Fallout Season 1 feels entirely like a straight-up entry in the decades-old game series. There have been obvious concessions for TV with a surprising amount of time spent in pre-blast America, focusing on the life of The Ghoul before the bombs dropped in LA. We get to see the creation of the iconic Vaults, who Vault Boy is and even an explanation of who the voice of the RobCo Mr. Handy robots is in-universe.
This is where it becomes rather apparent that the series is more Fallout 4 than Fallout 2 or New Vegas. There’s a fascination with Pre-War America and how the world became the way it did that has become more prominent in recent years. It’s an interesting take and one that may actually work better for a TV show format than Fallout 4’s gameplay.
The only bad part of Fallout is that it does feel like just the start of a main quest rather than a full adventure. As you near the end of the season, it becomes apparent that the full story is dependent on more seasons being greenlit, something that has, thankfully, already been confirmed. Essentially, with all the side quests that the cast find themselves getting engaged in, you’re seeing one chapter of a familiar Bethesda quest line, one that we’ll have to wait a while to see run its course.
The Fallout TV series also contains a slew of references that will appeal to long-time fans of the franchise. While we can’t talk about some of the best references here - damn embargoes - the finale will definitely have fans gasping and pointing at their screens like a certain Leo DiCaprio meme.
Amazon’s Fallout series excels in being an actual part of the main Fallout universe. While it offers more explanations that maybe most fans actually care about, its main story simply feels like an exploration of the treacherous wasteland across areas we’ve yet to see in the main games. It’s thrilling, gory, gross and hilarious, and it’s the best adaptation of Fallout we could expect to see after decades of video game adaptations spitting on their source material.
