Video game adaptations were wildly successful in 2023, including The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Last of Us, and the Twisted Metal series. To kick off this year’s gaming adaptations, Amazon Prime Video is premiering a new original series called Fallout, which is based on the hit video game franchise from Bethesda Softworks. Prime Video rarely goes small for something like this, and the Fallout TV series has a massive scale that most shows simply can’t match.
The first thing that you need to know about Fallout is that you don’t need to be familiar with the games to watch or enjoy the show. It’s not based on any single game in particular, and it draws from several of the Fallout titles to shape the narrative of the show. But it can’t hurt to have a little bit of background information before you’re thrown into the wild postapocalyptic landscape of the series. That’s why we’ve put together this roundup of everything you need to know about Fallout on Prime Video.
Who’s on the creative team behind Fallout?
Prime Video brought out its big guns for Fallout: Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. The co-creators of HBO’s Westworld signed on to produce the Fallout series in 2020, and Nolan is directing the first three episodes. Nolan and Joy are executive producers on the series, but the showrunners are Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, both of whom are credited as the creators of the show.
Just as the video game developer Naughty Dog helped shepherd The Last of Us, Bethesda is co-producing the Fallout series with Prime Video and Joy and Nolan’s Kilter Films. Todd Howard, the director of several Fallout video games, is also an executive producer on the show.
What are the Fallout games about?
Each of the Fallout games has their own story, but they share the same alternative history that diverges from our own. In this world, nuclear technology advanced so quickly that the retrofuturistic aesthetic seems to be stuck in the 1950s. All of those technological advances came at a price, as nations went to war over resources and nukes were exchanged. A handful of survivors lived beyond the nuclear apocalypse by settling into underground vaults, unaware that there were survivors on the surface too. Centuries after the bombs fell, the residents of the Vault emerged into a world that they barely recognized.
What’s the show about?
The series picks up 219 years after the nuclear war that devastated the planet. Ella Purnell has the leading role of Lucy, a woman who has spent her entire life underground as a Vault Dweller. For reasons that aren’t clear yet, Lucy leaves the safety of the Vault behind to explore the postapocalyptic wasteland in and around Los Angles.
One of the other primary characters is the Ghoul, as portrayed by Justified‘s Walton Goggins. The Ghoul (pictured above) is a horrifically scarred and mutated man who makes a living as a bounty hunter in the wasteland. He’s lived a long time and made a lot of enemies along the way.
While most of the survivors on the surface don’t appear to be technologically advanced, there are some exceptions. The Brotherhood of Steel is an alarmingly well-armed paramilitary group with enough firepower to impose their will on the survivors of this world. There may even be some sympathetic members of the Brotherhood, but they are not the good guys in this story. And it’s inevitable that both Lucy and the Ghoul will come into conflict with the Brotherhood as the series progresses.
Who’s starring in Fallout?
In addition to Purnell and Goggins, the cast of Fallout features the following performers:
- Aaron Moten as Maximus
- Kyle MacLachlan as Hank
- Mike Doyle as Mr. Spencer
- Moisés Arias as Norm
- Johnny Pemberton as Thaddeus
- Cherien Dabis as Birdie
- Dale Dickey as Ma June
- Matty Cardarople as Huey
- Michael Emerson as Wilzig
- Dave Register as Chet
- Rodrigo Luzzi as Reg
- Annabel O’Hagan as Steph
Xelia Mendes-Jones, Sarita Choudhury, Leslie Uggams, Chris Parnell, Frances Turner, and Zach Cherry will also appear in the show in roles that are currently unrevealed.
Is there a trailer for Fallout?
Yes. And it actually reveals that Goggins has an even larger role than we initially thought. The video opens with Goggins as the Ghoul’s former self, Cooper Howard, as he narrates a video that was made for the Vault dwellers. There are also glimpses of the woman that Cooper loved, and the way that he lost his family when the bombs fell. As the Ghoul, Cooper may be one of the few men who lived for centuries after the apocalypse, but he’s not the only one.
Meanwhile, Lucy has an especially hard time once she leaves the safety of Vault 33 behind. Lucy not only faces ridicule from the surface dwellers, but several of them try to kill her. One robot in particular attempts to harvest Lucy’s organs while she’s still alive. The trailer also suggests that the Ghoul and Lucy will form an alliance of sorts, and that she will have to become a killer herself in order to survive the wasteland.
How many episodes are in Fallout season 1?
There are eight episodes in Fallout season 1. That’s a standard season length at Prime Video.
When will Fallout premiere?
Amazon Prime Video is dropping all eight episodes of Fallout on April 11. That’s a departure from the streamer’s usual strategy of releasing two to three episodes on the same day, and rolling out the rest on a weekly basis. Will that be enough to get Fallout a second season? Stay tuned!
