EntertainmentTVSci-Fi ShowsThe Fallout show feels like an adaptation of a game that doesn’t existWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
EntertainmentTVSci-Fi ShowsThe Fallout show feels like an adaptation of a game that doesn’t existWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Prime Video)
When it comes to adaptations of video games into movies or TV shows, there are essentially only two possible paths forward. That is, assuming you’re aiming for authenticity. You either recreate the events of a given game as accurately as possible or you look to tell a new story within the world of the game. (Technically, there is a third option of completely ignoring the source material, but the less said of those kinds of adaptations the better.)
Amazon’s Prime Video has somehow introduced yet another outcome I had not previously thought possible. The new Fallout show honestly somehow feels like an adaptation of a game that doesn’t exist yet.
The modern Fallout games often follow a fairly classic RPG formula. There are, of course, deviations and specifics and variations, but typically the following tends to take place: the main protagonist and their worldview is introduced, said worldview is subsequently shattered in some way that sends them off to resolve a single issue, and the resolution of that issue is complicated in such a way that the original reason they even started off in the first place is either irrelevant, unimportant, or obsolete.
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(Image credit: Prime Video)
In the Prime Video series, Lucy (Ella Purnell) is your average Vault denizen looking to live and procreate until her home is attacked and her father (Kyle MacLachlan) is kidnapped, so she sets off into the post-apocalyptic ruins of Los Angeles only to end up trying to deliver something somewhere else but that turns out to be A Whole Thing and then… well, you should watch the show, but trust me:things get complicated.
It helps that everything supporting or surrounding the main narrative of the show is seemingly painstakingly detailed. When Todd Howard previously said that the folks making the show were"sweating every pixel,“he absolutely was not kidding. From the items like RadAway bags to the weapons to the Power Armor to the Vault-Tec advertisements to the over-the-top gore, the show pulls directly from its source material in a way that feels supportive but never completely reverential. Those bits are there to help express the story the show is telling rather than being strictly fan service.
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(Image credit: Amazon/Bethesda)
It does feel like this is maybe the ideal point of TV adaptations of games. Watching the show has made me hungry for more Fallout, and because there’s no truly new game to experience there, I’ve actually gone back to New Vegas for the first time in a decade and even the mobile game Fallout Shelter. (I’d play Fallout 4 again, and likely recommend the same to anyone interested in the franchise, but I personally left absolutely no meat on that bone and remember it vividly.) Some executive somewhere would probably love to hear this and say something about synergy.
Fallout season 1 is out on Prime Video now. For more on the show, check out our spoiler-filled guides:
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