The big premiere of Season 2 of the Fallout TV series is now under two weeks away, and with fans excitedly looking forward to its arrival on December 17 and the weekly episodic releases to follow, there's one big question on many a mind: how will the TV show handle the ending of Fallout: New Vegas?
It's something folks have been wondering about since the end of Season 1 strongly teased a focus on the post-apocalyptic city from which Obsidian Entertainment's acclaimed and fan-favorite 2010 game gets its namesake. The Season 2 trailer from Gamescom confirmed this — and along with other marketing materials, it's shown factions and characters from the RPG like the Kings, Caesar's Legion, and New Vegas' founder Robert House (Mr. House).
But what does that mean, exactly? Well, speaking with IGN, executive producers Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Jonathan Nolan noted that co-showrunner Graham Wagner (along with Robertson-Dworet) opted to make what happened in and after the events of New Vegas ambiguous, with each faction potentially having an argument that they "won."
“We had the delicious idea that at the end of a conflict, 15 years down the line, every faction might think they won, which I think has a bit of a poetic quality to it,” Nolan said. “It's like, the story of history depends on who you ask. That was the idea," Robertson-Dworet added.
Nolan also went on to say that New Vegas' different factions are all in "rebuilding mode" in the aftermath of the climactic events of the game, leading to some deterioration in the setting. The Elvis-worshipping street gang the Kings, for example, have all become ghouls, while the high-class "sanctity of Vegas" has been "violated."
“One of the fun ideas is that, with all the factions, whether it's the Legion, or the NCR, or the Kings, is that in any version of the ending, there'd be some rebuilding to be done, right?" He explained. "Whoever won, whoever lost, all these factions would be in rebuilding mode, and the sort of sanctity of Vegas, this place that House very carefully protected, has been, for reasons we'll come to understand in the season, has been removed or violated, which means that the folks who were in the game, safe and sound, have had some hard times.”
Still, locations like The Strip and Freeside will all be instantly recognizable to fans of New Vegas, so it's not like the city is a smoking crater or anything. The Strip in particular was described as “a very sacred kind of location" by Robertson-Dworet, so I don't expect it to look too different from the way it appears in Obsidian's game.
The Fallout TV show is doing right by New Vegas players
Robertson-Dworet explained that the reason for this "fog of war approach" is ultimately that "we wanted to try, as much as possible in our show, to honor all gamers' experiences and all the choices they might make as they play the game. So we always wanted to avoid trying to make one canonical ending the ending that led to the events of the show.”
This made me very happy to read, because I do think this is an important thing to keep in mind when you're adapting an RPG franchise in which the choices players make are very meaningful to them and their experience. The decision to go with a more obscure canon leaves room for the imagination to fill in blanks, and avoids invalidating anyone's chosen path in New Vegas. That consideration is much appreciated.
We can only speculate about the events that led to the state New Vegas is in now. I'm sure we'll learn plenty more details in Fallout Season 2, which premieres December 17.
Note that Fallout: New Vegas and every other Fallout game is on Xbox Game Pass, including the Xbox Game Pass Premium, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tiers.
FAQ
Does the Fallout TV show retcon New Vegas?
No, New Vegas has not been retconned by the Fallout show. We debunked this last year, and in Season 2, the showrunners say they're being careful with the series and its relation to the events of the RPG.
Does the Fallout TV show take place after Fallout 4?
The Fallout TV series takes place in 2296, which is nine years after Fallout 4 and 15 after the events of Fallout: New Vegas.
Does the Fallout TV show follow the game?
In the sense that the show takes place after the Fallout RPGs and is set in the same canonical timeline as they are, yes, the Fallout TV series follows the games.
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