It has been over 25 years since the very first Fallout game was released. Since then, the series has been expanded by many more games, establishing a rich post-apocalyptic world packed to the brim with complex lore. When adapting the Fallout franchise for TV, the production team was faced with the difficult task of effectively portraying that rich world in only eight episodes. The result is an original story that pays tribute to many of the things fans love about Fallout while also expanding and enhancing the setting in key ways.

Game ZXC sat down with executive producers Jonathan Nolan, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and Graham Wagner to discuss the process of adapting Fallout from a video game into a television series. The team discussed which elements of Fallout lore were crucial to include, what they unfortunately had to leave out, and what it was like crafting real-life versions of the iconic Vault sets.

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The Show Expands On Fallout Lore But Leaves Much Open For Future Seasons

Graham Wagner, a showrunner and executive producer, discussed his excitement at being able to include some lore elements and setting expansions not featured in the video game series. In particular, Wagner was excited that the show could explore what America looked like prior to the life-changing nuclear war. These explorations, he explained, were primarily carried out through the character of Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), who was an actor before becoming the mutated Ghoul.

I think one of the things we're most excited to include that lore of the world, but not a big part of the gameplay, is pre-war America...We were always interested in that, but you can kind of understand why they didn't do much more than they have. Because it's a shooting game, ultimately, and there's just not that much running around and shooting before the bombs drop. But there is intrigue there.

However, both Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet acknowledged that there were many Fallout lore, plot, and setting elements that they could not include. "There's just too much treasure in 25 years of Fallout games," Robertson-Dworet said. The team had frequent discussions about what to include and what to remove, especially as they were given only eight episodes to work with. "We're praying for a second season," she concluded with a hope-filled smile.

An Original Story Is Combined With Iconic Settings Like The Vaults

Executive producer Jonathan Nolan, who also directed several episodes of the series, revealed that getting to tell an original Fallout story was a dream come true for him. He loves that the show gets to add to the Fallout mythos while also drawing on the 25 years of series history that came before it. Summarizing his thoughts on the adaptation, Nolan said: "You get to stand on the shoulders of giants in terms of the world building, all the beautiful art, props, designs, and storytelling, but also get to add your own chapter to that story."

Of course, it wouldn't be a Fallout story without the Vaults, massive underground bunkers built by the Vault-Tec corporation. Nolan was pleased with the production team's decision to create an elaborate multi-story Vault set, rather than limiting themselves to individual hallways. Even Fallout creator Todd Howard was pleased with the Vault sets, Nolan revealed, stating that Howard had appreciated the accuracy of the design down to "the patina on the wall." When asked if he himself liked the set, Nolan's response was beyond exuberant. "From the cosmic to the microscopic, [the production team, led by Howard Cummings] crushed it." Fallout fans will get to watch the show's characters explore both the crowded Vaults and the massive, threatening Wasteland when the series premieres on Amazon Prime.

Fallout

Fallout is a franchise built around a series of RPGs set in a post-nuclear world, in which great vaults have been built to shelter parts of humankind. There are six main games, various spin-offs, tabletop games, and a TV series from Amazon Studios.