Fallout Season 2's Key New Vegas Recreations Broken Down By EP & Bethesda Boss

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An NCR sniper firing their rifle from an elevated spot in Fallout season 2

Published Feb 5, 2026, 10:00 AM EST

Grant Hermanns is a TV News Editor, Interview Host and Reviewer for ScreenRant, having joined the team in early 2021. He got his start in the industry with Moviepilot, followed by working at ComingSoon.net. When not indulging in his love of film/TV, Grant is making his way through his gaming backlog and exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends.

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Fallout season 2!As it sought to adapt the iconic 2010 video game, Fallout season 2 came with some major New Vegas recreations, and the creative team behind the show are sharing how certain beats came to life.

The latest chapter of the Prime Video adaptation of Bethesda's game franchise saw Ella Purnell's Lucy MacLean and Walton Goggins' The Ghoul travel across the Nevada desert in the hopes of finding her father, Kyle MacLachlan's Hank. Their journeys brought them face-to-face with everything from a dangerous Giant Radscorpion to the totalitarian Caesar's Legion, who are in the midst of a civil war, and a pack of Deathclaws upon their eventual arrival in New Vegas, with the dangerous creatures kept barricaded just outside of Freeside.

With a closer adherence to the source material than the original-skewing first season, Fallout season 2 saw a variety of iconic New Vegas scenes get direct recreations for the screen. This has ranged from certain tracks being included in the season 2 soundtrack, namely Marty Robbins' "Big Iron," to the shot of the New California Republic sniper shooting from a high vantage point in the finale.

In honor of the season's closure, ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns interviewed Jonah Nolan and Todd Howard to discuss Fallout season 2. The pair opened up about their favorite recreations from New Vegas, particularly one of the most iconic locations being brought to life in a largely practical matter, and the epic final fight between Maximus and the pack of Deathclaws.

Freeside & The Lucky 38's Construction "Was A Trip" For Nolan & Howard

The bustling Freeside streets in Fallout

One thing that Fallout has stayed consistent with across both seasons of the show is a dedication to being as practical as possible with their sets and effects, with production designer Howard Cummings and his team taking great lengths to bring the games to life. In looking at their favorite New Vegas recreations in season 2, Howard, who has been with the franchise as director since Fallout 3, began by citing both Robert House's full introduction and his penthouse in the Lucky 38, even if the team were scared of how fans would react.

Todd Howard: Everyone was excited about it, but there's also a lot of traps there. Such a revered location and game, and the players had their own journey. So, maneuvering that was pretty tricky. And the fact that it's landed as well as it has with so many fans, we're delighted, and thank you for your comments.

Nolan went on to praise Cummings — "who I've had the pleasure of working with now on lots of projects" — as being a "brilliant" production designer, as well as "a lovely human being." The EP also acknowledged the Lucky 38 Casino as being one that was the focus of many conversations among the creative team, particularly as it was a location where players found themselves "standing on the steps" frequently and "figuring out your next move."

In order to bring the Lucky 38 to life, Cummings and his team found a location in Los Angeles, where they put "a lot of work and love" into transforming it into the New Vegas setting. Finding that their work "allowed us to be standing on the steps" of the casino, Nolan even quipped that "the Germans haven't come up with a word yet" for the "specific kind of déjà vu" he experienced when being on that set.

Jonah Nolan: The specific kind of déjà vu you have when you're in a location you've only known virtually, and then you're in it physically. Todd's had that experience a couple of times. We've had that experience a couple of times with the Vaults, and then again with Lucky 38. It was pretty great.

Fallout Season 2 Ending's Pack Of Deathclaws Was A "Thrilling Challenge" For The Show

A Deathclaw looking menacingly toward the camera with meat in its mouth in Fallout season 2

One of the other major elements to finally make their debut in Fallout season 2 are the Deathclaws, the monstrous reptilian creatures initially introduced in the show during Cooper's time in the Resource Wars in Alaska and dubbed the "Demon in the Snow." The Deathclaws would return again in season 2's final few episodes, as a pack of them are seen roaming on the strip outside the Lucky 38 Casino.

While episode 5 saw Lucy and The Ghoul narrowly escape just one of them, the Fallout season 2 ending properly revealed every Deathclaw in the area, as Aaron Moten's Maximus stepped up to fight them with the newly discovered NCR Power Armor. In looking at how they pulled off this epic climactic fight, Nolan began by joking that it was through the work of "really tired stunt performers and motion performers" playing the creatures, as the show's "philosophy from the beginning is we're going to try and make it if we can."

Reflecting on the Deathclaw threat in the Fallout games, which often leaves players "eventually giving up and realizing you've got to go the long way around," the EP went on to explain that the show's productive team along with Legacy Effects and ILM came up with a "hybrid approach" to creating the iconic creatures by building "as much of the points that the camera's really going to focus on."

Jonah Nolan: That beautiful, terrifying mug, those eponymous claws, and then allowing the incredibly talented visual effects artists to fill in some of the blanks, which allowed us to have something real for the actors to interact with, perform with their incredible stunt team to literally wrestle with, but keep the weight to a level where a single performer could still. They're operated by four people at once, but you have one person under there. It was an approach we started with the Power Armor, and it worked really, really well.

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