Warning: spoilers for Fallout Season 1 and Season 2 follow.
Speculation and theories surround Fallout Season 1, with fans currently wondering about everything from the Snake Oil Salesman’s mysterious serum to the Brotherhood of Steel’s airship. But one thing we know for sure is that Season 2 takes place in New Vegas, the setting for the much-loved Fallout: New Vegas video game.
In a new interview with GQ, co-showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet dance around the various fan theories that have emerged following the release of Fallout on Prime Video, but say enough to get lore enthusiasts’ blood pumping.
Let’s start with New Vegas as the location of Season 2. As fans have noticed, the show reveals what looks like New Vegas in ruins, which is not the state of the place at the end of the events of New Vegas the video game. Let’s remember where we are in the timeline here: the TV show is set in the year 2296, after all the Fallout video games. Fallout 4 takes place in the year 2287, while Fallout: New Vegas is set in the year 2281, a full 15 years prior to the events of the show.
So, what happened in the 15 years since we last saw New Vegas? That’s exactly what Wagner and Robertson-Dworet were asked in the interview. In response, the pair confirmed that the setting has indeed changed, and explained why that is important for fans to note.
“All we really want the audience to know is that things have happened, so that there isn't an expectation that we pick the show up in season two, following one of the myriad canon endings that depend on your choices when you play [Fallout: New Vegas],” Wagner said.
“With that post-credits stuff, we really wanted to imply, guys, the world has progressed, and the idea that the wasteland stays as it is decade-to-decade is preposterous to us. It’s just a place [of] constant tragedy, events, horrors — there's a constant churn of trauma. We're definitely implying more has occurred.”
It’s clear that New Vegas is changed, then, but what will happen when the Power Armor-clad Overseer Hank, played by Kyle MacLachlan, turns up (potentially after a dustup with a Deathclaw)? Some speculate Mr. House, the enigmatic ruler of New Vegas in the video game and dastardly boss of RobCo Industries in the TV show’s flashbacks to before the bombs fell, may enlist the help of Hank to restore New Vegas to its former glory. Perhaps, if that’s the way the story goes, the forces of Mr. House and New Vegas will end up taking on the Brotherhood of Steel in yet another Fallout faction battle, with Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul caught in the middle.
Elsewhere in the interview, Wagner and Robertson-Dworet confirm there’s more to come from the flashback portion of the show, in particular revelations around the shadowy figures who witnessed Vault-Tec reveal its plan to launch the nukes first in a meeting with rival business leaders. Speaking of who fired first, some believe the suggestion Vault-Tec starts the Great War is a misdirection, and it seems there’s plenty more story to be told on this point.
“I would just not treat anything as definitive because, again, everything that we see is very subjective,” Wagner said. “That scene occurred. But what occurs between then and the actual bombs falling… there's more exciting stuff planned between that moment and the last moment, I guess I should say.”
To keep you going until Season 2, be sure to check out IGN’s wide-ranging, spoiler-filled interview with Bethesda Game Studios executive Todd Howard and executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
