Amazon's eight-episode Fallout 2024 series is a quality adaptation that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. “The new video game adaptation wasn’t such crap” isn’t exactly news anymore, is it? After Castlevania, The Last of Us and so on, the idea that a game adaptation could be good is no longer shocking. Even Werewolves Within, a horror-comedy based on a VR version of Ubisoft's social deduction game Werewolf, turned out great. Fallout doesn't come to a world where it's unbelievable that a TV series based on a video game could be worth watching. I'm just glad he won't change the trend.
Part of the thing about the Fallout TV incarnation is that it's not just a story in a familiar setting, but a story that feels like a video game story. Or rather, like three video game stories. Whereas in some Fallout games you can define your path based on your problem-solving approach, morality, or the faction you side with, in the Fallout television series this division occurs through multiple protagonists.
The main characters of the series Fallout 2024
Lucy (Ella Purnell) is a naïve vault dweller emerging into the blinding light of a terrifying world, a character so innocent that her catchphrase is “Okie-dokie!” Ned Flanders. Maximus (Aaron Moten) is a trainee of the militant Brotherhood of Steel who fully believes in their propaganda of protecting the world by accumulating pre-war technology. And Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is a bounty hunter with the Bloody Mess perk, and he really has a playstyle to match. The slow motion as he shoots up the city makes it look like he's using VATS.
While these three main characters get the most screen time, they aren't the only things going on. There's a fugitive from the Enclave, an extended flashback to Goggins' character in his pre-war life, and - just as Fallout 3 keeps things going in the Vault while you're away - the Fallout TV series has an entire B-plot where Lucy's brother Norm investigates the mystery of his home, the Vault 33, and its associated Vault 32. This leads to a full-fledged creepy side story, complete with Bethesda-style environmental storytelling, right down to the messages written on the walls, which is one of the best parts of the series.
Fallout (TV series) is really similar to Fallout (games), and not just because it has characters in Pip-Boys and power armor. Its structure is so familiar that when Lucy accepted the job of escorting someone through the Wasteland, I heard the “mission accepted” notification buzz in my head.
It also helps that the game has thought out the small details. When Lucy modifies her Vault suit after spending some time on the surface, she adds a leather shoulder pad similar to the armored Vault suits in the games. Characters eat Yum Yum Deviled Eggs and Blamco Mac & Cheese, pass by the dilapidated Red Rocket and the Sunset Sarsaparilla factory, and the horrors are offset by ironic doo-wop. While the visuals owe a lot to Fallout 4, some of the deeper references go back to the original games. And, of course, there is a dog.
This won't stop those who have been complaining since the first trailer about little things like "the characters don't look dirty enough." While there are plenty of scenes of people trudging through dusty swamps with dried blood on their clothes from previous battles, the color palette isn't limited to browns and grays, which won't sit well with the realism brigade. Nor will those who insist on being told "what NCR is up to" be told in the first episode, or want characters to take time away from the plot to explain on screen why they use certain weapon models, or whatever. what the deep bores decided to focus on. None of this would have made the show any better, if you ask me.
Wild Wasteland and the Fallout 2024 series
The inhabitants of the vault are seen as ridicule by the wastelanders, as privileged naives descended from the elite who hid while everyone else suffered. Post-apocalyptic fiction has a problem with the way it accidentally condones the survivalist mentality. IN The Last of Us Bunker nut Bill, played by the lovable Nick Offerman, seems like a pretty decent guy, but Fallout doesn't let the vault's denizens get off that easy. Some are fools, some are manipulative, and the only heroes are those who rebel against their environment and the lie that hoarding resources and giving everyone else free reign is the way to survive.
As fun as it is to see our familiar world destroyed by an apocalypse—Fallout has some cool moody shots of rusty fairgrounds and city streets—post-apocalyptic fiction too often amounts to a predictable story about people making tough decisions to survive in a tough world and inevitably becoming bitter from this. Fallout builds on this idea. Lucy must learn harsh lessons from the values she was taught in the Vault, but she remains a decent person who persists in pursuing her good karma. There is not a drop of cynicism in the game, in which The Last of Us, and while it's full of cheesy jokes and bloody shootouts, Fallout also has an unlikely message of hope.
Ending of the first season
The only thing I didn't like about Fallout was that it ended, and that it ended without tying up all the loose ends. The first season's eight episodes felt less self-contained than I expected, and the climax set up a lot more groundwork for a second season than I expected, given how many streaming series get unexpected cancellations. It looks like there will be a second season, thank goodness, because I'm more looking forward to the Fallout sequel than I was after playing Fallout 4 or 76.
That's all. These were our thoughts about the Fallout 2024 series.
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