ByGraves
With the release of Season 1 of Amazon Prime’s new Fallout series, there has been a lot of talk about what changes, and what never does. Specifically, many people are wondering how the show differs from the games, and in what ways it is similar. And so, we are going to go into the four biggest ways in which the show differs from the games, and the four ways in which it most closely adheres.
Because we want to make sure these reasons are useful for people who have either played the games or seen the show and are debating checking the other half of the series out, we are going to be focusing on the big picture, not the minute details, to help you see how each compares. This is also not a competition: the changes made for the show are treated as equal to the original ideas put in place in the game. There will be no fuming here.
With all that out of the way, let’s begin.
Alright, this is the messy one, so let’s get it out of the way first. The show’s take on the timeline of Fallout does not technically contradict anything we know (though there is at least one blackboard that caused a lot of confusion), but it does set things up in a different way than Fallout fans will be familiar with.
This risks going into spoiler territory, so I’ll try to be vague, but the show departs in 3 major ways from the popular lore of Fallout by doing the following:
Appart from those details, Prime’s Fallout is pretty accurate to the games, and even those above “changes” are more not technically contradicted anywhere, even if the new version of the timeline will bug many fans’ idea of the franchise.
Onto a more specific change, the role that the New California Republic has in the Prime show is vastly different than how they have been depicted in Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. Whereas in those games the NCR — a democratic nation with deep administrative, political, and military power — served as one of the largest factions in the wastes, in the show it seems like they have all but vanished.
Now, not to panic, the NCR still make an appearance in the show, and seem primed to make a big showing as it progresses. But, in Season 1, it is obvious that a catastrophic event left them crippled and weak, diminishing their presence in California to a few scattered remnants and some big ideas. Compared to the military-political-industrial machine that was present in New Vegas, this is a big shift, especially for a faction whose popularity is only outshined by the Brotherhood of Steel.
Even if we might suggest that there is plenty that can still happen with the NCR going forward, the fact remains that season 1 of the show both features them less, and puts them in a far worse position than we’ve seen them in since they formed.
In addition to having a more lawless wasteland than the West Coast has seen in over a century (being more in line with Fallout 3 and 4‘s wastelands), the fact is that the wasteland in the show just hits different. To be more specific, it has to be different from the games in order to work. The games are universally much more dense in their design, with something new having to pop up to keep the player’s attention every few minutes.
The show, by comparison, has a more sparse, deserted wasteland. While it is still brimming with life and danger, and while the show does capture the same feeling with many of its encounters and locations, it is also just more empty. That makes it more inhospitable, and lets the show rely on more of the cinematic language for wastelands and post-apocalyptia developed before.
Each method has its drawbacks and benefits, and perfectly suits its medium. And, truly, we might be overstating just how different each of these approaches is (especially given how much the show gets right about the wasteland). But, all that said, it is undeniable that there is a difference in feel between each.
Ghouls have been a mainstay in Fallout since the first game. They are humans who, after being exposed to huge amounts of radiation, have become heavily-altered mutants. In both the show and the games, they are functionally unaging, able to heal and sustain themselves off of radiation, and are generally tough. After long enough, ghouls can also become feral, where they become essentially zombie-like creatures who mindlessly attack anyone who gets close to them, though this can be avoided for some ghouls.
And that is where the differences really start to show themselves. In the show, we see Walton Goggin’s Ghoul need to consume some kind of medication in order to avoid becoming feral. We are even shown what happens when a non-feral ghoul doesn’t take those medications, and how quickly they can turn. We are also given a look at a mysterious serum that can transform someone into a ghoul.
All of this is very different in the games. While the existence of the aforementioned serum has been hinted at, especially in Fallout 4, it is far from the standard cause of ghoul-ification. Nearly all ghouls in Fallout are made so just by good, old-fashioned radiation. Furthermore, the need to medication to prevent becoming feral is entirely an invention of the show: there is no hint in any of the games that any other non-feral ghouls require such medication to survive, even when they are in your party as companions and you can see their inventories. And yet, the show depicts stock houses carrying loads of this medicine. This brings with it tons of implications for ghouls and their place in society in the show.
Alright, this is just clear cut: the new Fallout show look and sounds basically exactly like the games. From the clean and polished Vaults and their sense of naive neighborliness, to the ramshackle wasteland towns full of misspelled signs and mysterious merchants. It’s to the point where at least one screenshot I shared with my friends had them questioning if it was an in-game render or something from the new show.
In short, if you like the look of one, you’ll like the look of the other. The costuming, setwork props, color grading, and even the acting and cinematography perfectly capture the feeling of the Fallout games, especially the Bethesda-published titles, in a way that very few adaptations manage.
This one will be a bit controversial, but the show managed to do something I thought would be impossible: it was able to reconcile the two strains of the Brotherhood of Steel in a satisfying way that respects both of their traditions.
The dying, dogmatic, impractical West Coast brotherhood of steel was at death’s door in Fallout: New Vegas (the one major game where their iconic Power Armor wasn’t on the cover), and that is reflected in the show’s depiction of them. Scribes have been replaced by Clerics, and there is a kind of religious fervor that bleeds into their duties. The kind of stubborn thinking that put the Brotherhood in such a bad shape on the West Coast is very plain, and seems to be corrupting this version of the Brotherhood once more, even though they have more power.
And, speaking of that “more power” thing: in comes the East Coast Brotherhood. Much more powerful, militaristic, and authoritarian, the East Coast flavor of the Brotherhood is clearly present and has melded into its West Coast counterpart. Not only are its trappings present, like the Prydwen airship, but an overall iron-fist, military approach to conflicts seems to define them. The West Coast brotherhood, for all their dogma, was never quite as fascist aggressive as their East Coast counterparts. And yet, in the show, we see a West Coast Brotherhood of Steel constantly storming positions, ruling with authoritarian zeal, and strong arming themselves to victory.
These two ideas of the Brotherhood should not only have been difficult to adapt, but impossible to reconcicle. And yet, the Prime show has managed to do both.
The thing I was most apprehensive about going into the Fallout show was how it would handle the Vaults. After all, it is too easy to turn them into bland parodies of sheltered idiots living privileged lives with their heads almost literally “in the sand.” Either that or ridiculous experiments that just serve as dungeons, missing the sense of mystery that makes those vaults appeal so well in the game. Instead, though, what we get is a perfect encapsulation of what Vaults are in Fallout.
Vault Dwellers are naive, yes, but they are not idiots. After all, several player characters in the games have been Vault Dwellers! And so, time and time again, we see Vault Dwellers — especially Lucy — using their knowledge to their advantage, and being surprisingly aware of what they don’t know. Take Vault 4, for example (though be ready for some spoilers): in the show, this is a vault that once had experiments, before they were shut down. And, once they did so, they began taking in people from the surface so they could live a better, safer life.
This is great! There is still this underlying naivety of the Vault Dwellers, and a strong sense of mystery, but they are depicted how they are in the games: still a wily Wasteland faction with nicer digs. The show captures the mystery of exploring new vaults by recreating that mystery in the trapping of television, and captures the ingenuity of the Vault Dwellers in its main character. It’s honestly impressive.
“War. War never changes.”
Not only is that one of the best quotes ever written about war, it also has featured somehwere in every single Fallout game and, now, in the show. Sometimes more than once. And if the show understands nothing else, it understand that. Parellels between the old Great War and the new wars that have been fought since (and are being fought at the time of the show and each of the games) are abound, and the overall thematic conceit of all of Fallout is present on full display.
War is a destructive pattern, always leaving things in ruins and worse off. And we see that no more clearly than in Fallout, both the show and the game. There is complexity there, though: War never changes, but the outcomes always seem to. All the way back in the first Fallout, there are dozens of ending variations depending on the players’ many actions. Likewise, the show seems bathed in potential for its main characters to make a difference, even as war… War never changes.
So, there you have it. These are the major differences and similarities between the Fallout games and the Amazon Prime Fallout show. Can you think of others? Or do you disagree with anything we’ve said here? Or do you just want some clarification? Leave it in a comment below, and we will see what else can be said.
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