Fallout has long been a darling of the RPG genre. The first two games were 90s classics, granting the player a dizzying amount of freedom in how they interacted with the environment. But the series really hit the mainstream with 2008’s Fallout 3, which borrowed the engine and design philosophy of the Elder Scrolls titles to deliver a massive post-apocalyptic world to explore in full 3D. That game has since been followed by Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, keeping the series in the public eye.
Now, the wasteland is coming to Amazon Prime. Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy today announced that they’re partnering with Amazon to create a new TV show based on the games, which will have a “substantial” budget.
“Fallout is one of the greatest game series of all time,” said Nolan and Joy. “Each chapter of this insanely imaginative story has cost us countless hours we could have spent with family and friends. So we’re incredibly excited to partner with Todd Howard and the rest of the brilliant lunatics at Bethesda to bring this massive, subversive, and darkly funny universe to life with Amazon Studios.”
Amazon’s Albert Cheng, meanwhile, had this to say:
“Fallout is an iconic global franchise, with legions of fans worldwide and a rich, deeply compelling storyline that powers it. And Jonah and Lisa are the perfect storytellers to bring this series to life. We’re thrilled to join with Bethesda to bring Fallout to television.”
It’ll be fascinating to see how much of the series’ trademark retro-futurism makes the jump. While the franchise is set in the wake of a nuclear war and takes place in a burnt-out wasteland, the games approach this in a very tongue-in-cheek manner. Elements all but guaranteed to be in the show are the Vaults, in which survivors fled as the bombs dropped and which were secretly used for bizarre social experiments, the gigantic green super mutants (sometimes smarter than they look) and the Brotherhood of Steel’s intimidating looking power armor.
The latest entry in the franchise, the online multiplayer-focused Fallout 76, continues to be an embarrassing failure for Bethesda, so an announcement like this should put wind in the series’ sails. It’s now been five years since Fallout 4 as well, so might this TV series dovetail into the release of Fallout 5? Perhaps, as it’d definitely be fun if they were set in the same irradiated region and could cross over at points.
