Video games have also always been happy to play in the end of the world, and a lot of them have made fantastic TV adaptations. The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, and Castlevania are all set in worlds that have fallen apart or are rotting. It makes for many ripe opportunities to tell compelling character studies in unbelievable worlds.
Another of these video game adaptations is on Prime Video, Fallout, based on the game franchise of the same name. Fallout, like The Last of Us, is set on an Earth almost unrecognizable from the one we know, except instead of zombies and depressed survivors, it's a Mad Max-style bonanza of carnage and mayhem.
The series takes liberally from the long-running video game series, though it tells its own unique story. 219 years after a world war resulted in nuclear annihilation of most of the planet, the survivors have managed to repopulate above ground in an irradiated wasteland, and below, in shiny, All-American shelters/science experiments, called Vaults.
Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) is one of these Vault Dwellers, but after her father is kidnapped, she leaves the Vault to venture into the dangerous wastelands where she encounters a futuristic knight named Maximus (Aaron Moten) and a legendary bounty hunter and undead ghoul named Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins).
It has all the end-of-the-world scenarios of The Last of Us, but is much more in line with the wacky, hyper-violent, satirical landscape of George Miller's Mad Max franchise of films. It makes for an exciting blend that's a joy to watch just visually, but it has mysteries and questions to keep you engaged even when the explosions end.
Why Fallout Stands Out Among Other Video Game Adaptations
Fallout stands out among video game adaptations, even if only taking into account the last few years, when all video game TV shows have jumped up a level. The series makes a wise decision about its storyline, which is that it doesn't adapt any specific game; it makes up its own story.
There are non-stop nods to the video games, of course, but they aren't cobbled together like a puzzle; instead, the story is created, and when it makes sense to insert something from the games, it's placed in naturally. It makes the story and the game elements feel more of a piece than they may otherwise be.
It's a series that delights in its video game elements and is never embarrassed by them, even by the most goofy of them. This ease that the show has with its own conceit makes telling the story so much easier. Fallout has a great story, too. It marries the past before the war and the present in constantly changing, but legible ways.
The partnership that forms between Lucy, the Ghoul, and Maximus is filled with great chemistry and makes sense. It's never a wonder why these people choose to stick together, and their push and pull against one another helps elevate Fallout from a standard but worthwhile video game adaptation into one of 2024 and 2026's best shows.
Release Date
April 10, 2024
Network
Amazon Prime Video
Showrunner
Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
Directors
Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner
Writers
Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan
English (US) ·