Patrolling the Mojave

Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios/Wikimedia Commons

First a series of exciting video games, now an exciting series, every iteration of Fallout is an action-packed and well-written adventure that is deserving of all of its fans

In April of 2024, Amazon released a television series set in the world of the beloved video game series Fallout, which has been around since 1997. Despite the fact that video game adaptations generally have a reputation for being underwhelming, or just plain bad, this one was different. Not only was the show created by fans of the games with respect for the source material, but it was also unique in the fact that instead of adapting a pre-existing story from the games, it created its own. 

This unique take on adapting video games for television not only contributed to it being a massive success with fans, but also with those who had never played the games as well. This led to an increase in the amount of players for some of the series’ more recent titles, especially Fallout 4 (2015). As you would expect, the show’s major success led to it being renewed for a second season, which releases this December and boasts a notably larger budget than the first, as well as a third to follow up.

The show is set in Los Angeles over 200 years after a devastating nuclear war that occurred in the year 2077 and follows three main characters: Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), a sheltered and naively optimistic resident of a Vault (which is just this franchise’s name for large underground fallout shelters); Maximus (Aaron Moten), a low-ranking member of a militaristic tech-hoarding faction known as the Brotherhood of Steel; and Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), a popular Hollywood actor before the war who has long since mutated, becoming a bounty hunter known as “The Ghoul.” 

All three of these characters are extremely well-acted by the cast, and each one provides their own outlook on a strange wasteland which itself can only be described as unique, with the pre-war world being shown through the various flashbacks to Cooper Howard’s life before total atomic annihilation. 

I also found that the show recreated the tone of the games very well, with more serious moments being balanced out with wacky dark humor, thus causing the show to not take itself too seriously, while also not becoming too silly either. And while the show definitely isn’t perfect— my largest gripe being the moving of a very important location from the games hundreds of miles from where it was in its original appearances—I truly believe that this show has the potential to become something great in the future. It may even have the potential to be the greatest video game-to-screen adaptation of all time, with its unique take on an incredibly intricate and original world that can be easily understood by fans of the games, while avoiding being so intricate and complex to the point where those new to the franchise would have issues understanding what is going on.

The second season is set to pick up where things left off at the end of the first, with the story seemingly revolving around a massive brewing conflict, and is going to be mainly set within the Mojave Wasteland, which is the main setting of what is perhaps the greatest RPG of all time—Fallout: New Vegas (2010). 

The Mojave Wasteland features many iconic locations (Freeside, Novac, etc.), factions, (The Kings, Caesar’s Legion, etc.), and creatures (Deathclaws, Radscorpions, etc.), which are confirmed to be making appearances, with the beloved character Robert Edwin House (Justin Theroux), a major player in the events of Fallout: New Vegas (2010), set to play a much larger role in the events of the series after a brief cameo at the end of season one. It’ll also be hilarious to see the Home Alone kid (Macaulay Culkin) in the role of a presumably high-ranking member of Caesar’s Legion, a massive wannabe Roman Empire composed of slaves from 87 different tribes, who as of right now remains unnamed.

In closing, I can say that if you are having issues finding something to watch in the future, you should definitely give Fallout (2024) a try. Although it’s definitely not going to be the next Breaking Bad (2008-2013) or Game of Thrones (2011-2019), it definitely is one of those stand-out shows that releases every once in a blue moon that offers something fresh and unique in a time where most entertainment giants tend to prefer quantity over quality. And even if the show doesn’t end up tickling your fancy, at the very least it is sure to keep you entertained throughout its entire eight-episode runtime. They really need to make shows longer again.