Bethesda boss Todd Howard has opened up about the one major difference between the iconic Fallout video game series and its Prime Video TV adaptation.
Speaking exclusively to Ny Breaking, Howard revealed he was interested in Amazon’s live-action version Fallout to discover what the world was like before the events of the popular post-apocalyptic first-person shooter (FPS) games.
The franchise is set on a dystopian Earth, in an alternate timeline, hundreds of years after the Great War. The cataclysmic event, which occurred on October 23, 2077, left the US and China embroiled in all-out thermonuclear war, resulting in the deaths of billions of people and the end of civilization as we know it. While every game in Bethesda’s beloved series explores the in-universe consequences of the Sino-American War, none of them have explicitly shown these events to players in the 27 years since the franchise began.
Howard, who has overseen the development of every game since 2008 Fallout 3says Amazon Fallout The TV show is incredibly faithful to almost every aspect of the franchise that Bethesda created. However, he admits that the decision to depict The Great War in the TV adaptation – a stunning yet gripping sequence set in the first seven minutes of episode one – was a necessity to immerse audiences old and new in the story it tells.
“The big change was exploring the past,” he told me. “In our first conversations (mine and creator Jonathan Nolan’s) we knew we wanted to tell a new story that feels like a new chapter in the Fallout series, just like we do with the games, with each game having its own geography and story, but still retaining all the hallmarks of previous titles.
“We both wanted to do that with the show, but the one thing we could never do in the games was (explore) the past. The way Jonah and everyone else researched what the US looked like, what is the threat of the atomic bomb and what will people do if a nuclear war happens, what is the Red Scare, who is Vault-Tec… they have all this fantastic history and lore to Fallout. All of these things then impact the current characters on the show, so it was a treat for me and everyone at Bethesda who worked on the series. Fallout to think, ‘Oh, this is really fresh, but it’s also typical Fallout‘.
‘It’s horrifying… I was so surprised with the final product’
Have seen Fallout‘s first four episodes – look for my review soon – I can say, without spoiling too much, that the show’s exploration of a pre-Great War Earth is flamboyant, elegantly retro-futuristic and completely lived-in. Through the eyes of big-screen star Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins), we get to see what life was like before the bombs fell, with flashback sequences interspersed with the show’s key contemporary events.
However, it is the aforementioned beginning of the Great War that is – perhaps unsurprisingly – the most striking and moving aspect of hat research. FalloutThe series’ various trailers and clips have invited us into a hilariously grim end-of-the-world party and shown us some fun Western action, but the opening salvo of inescapable horror is just as chilling, if not quite as long as: a opening that viewers were treated to The last of us‘ TV adaptation on Max. As Goggins and fellow cast member Kyle McLachlan, who plays Vault-33 and supervises Hank MacLean, told me, they were emotionally floored when they saw said scene for the first time.
“Watching the first seven minutes of the show with an audience was enlightening but horrifying,” Goggins revealed. “Any version of trauma, on any level, is difficult to watch, but I was so surprised by the final product and how emotional everyone I watched it with was. I think that’s when the show is at its best – It’s funny, but there are real consequences for those involved.”
“The impact of those opening minutes is huge,” McLachlan added. “Cooper is trying to save his daughter and make everything right, but as an observer I also thought, ‘oh, we – society – have really let them down (the generations to come).’ This was in the power that be’s control and their power to pre-empt this, but they didn’t. There are many themes in our show, but I think the exploration of having responsibility, taking action, and living with your choices is one of the most powerful .”
Look out for more exclusives from Howard, Nolan and the show’s main cast, including myself in the lead up FalloutLaunching April 11 on Prime Video.