Speaking during a roundtable interview at CCXP, the creators of Prime Video's Fallout series are thinking of this new show as their Fallout 5.
Executive producer and showrunner Graham Wagner began by answering a question about how they were inspired by the games when making the new series. As it turns out, they really wanted to continue the tradition of Fallout games exploring a new area of this post-apocalyptic USA and make this something that could stand toe-to-toe with the games that came before.
Congratulations! You’re now watching the FALLOUT teaser trailer. Arriving April 12 on @primevideo. pic.twitter.com/WUIFiMMpFh
— FALLOUT⚡️ (@falloutonprime) December 2, 2023
"We didn't start from a place of characters from the games," Wagner said. "We set things after. We kind of told ourselves, this is Fallout 5, this is just another installation, and we're starting with fresh snow."
Instead of Boston or Washington, D.C., however, this show has set its sights on Vault 33 and Los Angeles. So, while there will be a new story and characters for fans to hopefully fall in love with, it will still very much retain what made Fallout so beloved in the first place.
One thing they were inspired by from the games was the promise of it being an open world where you can make whoever you want to be your player character. While they obvioulsy can't let each viewer create their own character for the show, they came up with a pretty compelling solution.
The series will follow three characters - Ella Purnell's Lucy, Aaron Moten's Maximus, and Walton Goggins' The Ghoul - and they each let you experience a completely different character and part of this world. Lucy is from Vault 33, Maximus is part of the Brotherhood of Steel, and The Ghoul has been around for hundreds of years and was there even before the blast. The Ghoul is also a special character because you get to see two very different sides of him.
"It's a very different mode of storytelling," executive producer and director Jonathan Nolan said of games vs TV or movies. "One of the things I'm most excited about is telling an ensemble story and coming at it from these three perspectives. It was, to me, kind a brilliant hack for how you present that role-playing game mechanic of the games, which is you, as that vault dweller, can be anyone. They can look like anyone and can make any choices they want, which is not a luxury you can afford the audience when you're telling them a linear story.
"So, having three perspectives, having Ella's character and Aaron's character and Walton's characters occupy these very different corners of the fallout universe gave us a chance to encompass some of the ambition of the games, not just in terms of world building, but in terms of morality and in terms of the gray area. We talked a lot about 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," which is one of my very favorite films, and so that was a great touchstone for us as we sort of embarked on the journey."
For more, check out all the details on Fallout's first trailer, check out more images and details of the show here and the fans' reaction to the first look at the series.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
