Inside Fallout, the most surprising TV movie in gaming | games

TThe Fallout TV series returns to Prime Video today, and it’s fair to say that everyone was pleasantly surprised by how good the first season was. By portraying Fallout’s retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic United States through three different characters, it was able to capture different aspects of the game’s player experience as well. There was Lucy, the cellar dweller, trying to do the right thing and finding that the barren land made that very difficult; Max, the Brotherhood’s initiate, who begins to question his sect’s authority and causes a lot of havoc on the robotic power armor; And the ghoul, Walton Goggins’ titular character, has long since lost any sense of morality in the irradiated wilderness.

The first season of the show ended by revealing who helped cause the nuclear war that trapped a group of people in underground vaults for a few centuries. It also left a lot of questions open for season 2, and this time the expectations are higher. Even being “not terrible” was a win for video game mods until very recently. How do the creators of the Fallout TV show feel now that the first season has been a success?

“We’ll take ‘Not Awful’ — let’s put it on the poster,” says Jonah Nolan, the director who co-produced the series with Geneva Robertson-Dworet. I’m talking to them alongside Bethesda’s Todd Howard, director of the latest Fallout video game. I last met Nolan and Howard in 2024, before the first season premiered. Howard had been waiting a long time for a Fallout adaptation, waiting for someone who seemed to really understand the series. Nolan, a lifelong gamer, was that person. Howard was ready to red pen when he received the first script, but was relieved to find it was “awesome.”

“Going into Season 1, everyone says, ‘Do it right,’” Howard says. “We’ve been very pleased with the reception to the show, so people are coming this time around with more excitement and different expectations.”

Season 2 takes place in New Vegas, the location of 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas, which has the best writing and characters of any game in the series, even if it’s a bit broken. The post-nuclear sector was a decadent criminal paradise full of warring factions and destitute residents having the best time possible, under bleak circumstances. It was filmed in the real Nevada desert and throughout California. “It’s more of a desert setting, or a Mojave setting, which is very essential to this game,” Nolan says. “The dusty, exciting atmosphere of Route 66 is great fun to bring to the show.”

In the show, a long time has passed since the events of New Vegas by the time Lucy and the ghouls arrive in town, but Howard says it references the player’s journey. “When you play at a venue that the players know so well… honoring everyone’s journey through that game was a trick,” he says. “Time has flown by. What does New Vegas look like now?… If you’re a fan of that game, there’s a lot to love about Season 2, both visually and also with the factions and what happens with them.”

The Fallout TV series has a tactile feel – its creators made sure to build real props and sets, reflecting the nature of the cobblestone settlements in the games, where everyone builds things out of trash and each city is cobbled together from anything anyone can find. “As a sci-fi fan, I watch a lot of shows, and I realize they’re all in front of a blue screen,” says Robertson-Dworet. “The whole goal of an adaptation, especially in a video game, is to feel like it’s real… Of course, we still enhance the visual effects, but where possible, the actors actually stand in front of the locations that I loved seeing in the game.”

In fact, everything you see on screen is pretty much real, even the terrifying radioactive monsters, the Death Claws. They were even as scary as the blobs of pixels in the original Fallout games of the 1990s. In the show, they’re puppets, and they look pretty scary up close. “It was the closest look I’ve ever gotten at a Deathclaw. In Fallout 4, whenever I saw one, it instantly killed me,” Nolan laughs. “It was very surreal to be able to stand there and stare at it.”

“Even the rad scorpion puppet was amazingly scary,” adds Robertson Durrett. It was so big – Mama Scorpio, that is. The little ones were fine, they were like overgrown lobsters, but it was really quite scary when the puppeteer was attacking me with the big one.

The Fallout series works because it’s made by talented filmmakers who are also gamers and with the help of the people who created the actual games. Howard is replaying Red Dead Redemption 2 at the moment and resuming his long-dormant obsession with (American) college football games at EA; Nolan spent the summer playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom with his entire family; Robertson-Dworet is still working on scripts for the show, so she has a big role in New Vegas (as does her husband).

(Not everyone on the show is a gamer, though. In an interview with PC Gamer, Goggins the Ghoul said he had never played a Fallout game and had no intention of doing so. “No, I haven’t sat down to play games,” he said. “And I won’t. I won’t. I won’t play games. I’m not interested.” That’s okay, Walton. No one is judging your gamer credibility.)

Season 2 will be released weekly rather than one set of episodes, so we’ll all experience it differently than last season – including Howard, Nolan and Robertson-Dworet, who will now be looking at people’s reactions each week.

“It’s deeper, bigger, funnier, and has a lot of surprises,” Howard says. “I’m looking forward to seeing what people think.”

What are you playing?

Swedish developer Simogo has made some of the most interesting iPhone and iPad games of the 2000s, from the unforgettable puzzle game Device 6 to the bizarre A year’s journey. I recently released a bunch of these games, in an attempt to preserve them before they’re removed from mobile storefronts or become unplayable thanks to iOS updates.

Available on: Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, PC
Estimated playing time: 5-More than hours

What are you reading?

• Game prizes It took place last week, and it’s a quick affair that usually takes place in just under four hours. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won nine awards, including Game of the Year, kicking off a predictable online debate about whether it’s that good. See the full list of winners here, a list of highlights from promotions and announcements here, and look for The Guardian’s games of the year list on Friday.

• Lara Croft is back for two new films Tomb Raider Games, starring the confident version of the tank-topped action heroine from the 90s. The first game, Catalyst, is a new adventure set in northern India, in the year 2027; Next year we will see Legacy of Atlantis, a remake of the first Tomb Raider game.

• Good news for our young and energetic readers: Quick Shot IIthe legendary joystick beloved by many Amiga and C64 gamers, will be back in January. It will work with anything with a USB slot, including all recent versions of Amiga, Commodore, and Spectrum home computers.

What to click on

Question block

reader Laura He asks:

“We love games that we can play as a couple, whether they are designed for a single player (egg Blue Prince) or multiplayer (egg For the King, Gloomhaven, Cinderfolk). Puzzle and turn-based games seem to work well. Do you have any suggestions for something to try next?”

We’ve answered a few variations of this question before, but since it’s Christmas, I suspect a lot of people will be looking for something to play while relaxing on the sofa – so here are some new recommendations for local multiplayer and pillow-passing games. If you like a challenge absolute It is a cool but elegant mix of beat ’em up and adventure. Powerwash 2 simulator Allows you to clean dirty things together quietly. For nominally single-player games, narrative games often make good walkthroughs; Lost Records: Bloom and Rage and send They are two of the best players this year. You may want to try trading attempts on… Baby stepsthe most infuriating game of the year. And my partner enjoyed taking turns Ball x holethe engaging game where you defeat hordes of demons using magical ping pong balls.

If you have a question about the Question Pack – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us at pushbuttons@theguardian.com.