The much anticipated Fallout show finally dropped on Amazon Prime Video, based on the acclaimed games of the same name. Given the games particular visual style, humour and open world gameplay there was a lot interest in how this would translate to a TV series.
Thankfully, the creators have done a faithful recreation of the world, full of references for players and hopefully interesting enough for those being newly introduced. It tends to fall a little flat as a constructed show, with the plot pushing the character decisions to a point of disbelief but tends to move fast enough, and with enough variety that the clunky writing can be somewhat excused.
Immediately introduced to Lucy the vault dweller, we get game references right off the bat as she lists her character skills during an interview, the same set of skills a player would pick from the games. These less obvious references are littered throughout, from interacting to people with a weapon pointing at them, to treating the companion as a literal walking golf caddy. To those with no experience of the games, these gags can be missed entirely or treated as goofy visuals without context - they might work but not to the same level to that of a Fallout player. Introducing game mechanics into a TV show is a potentially recipe for disaster but the creators blended it well into the peripheral.
The glimpses into the pre-war America was a nice touch, not being an area the games dive into outside of the odd pieces of lore scattered around. Expanding on the world without introducing (too many) contradicting statements.
Within the wasteland, the story splits between following our main characters all on the same fetch quest, with an investigation into mysterious goings on in the home vault. I’m glad they kept the creepy experimental nature of the vaults, they were some of my favourite discoveries from the games.
Characters and story are too often dictated by the plot, making decisions that seem out of character purely to hit the beat required. The distances characters can traverse without sustenance (until the plot demands they do so) requires quite the suspension of disbelief. I can forgive them a bit from a new show perspective and having to introduce a lot of concepts to a wide audience, but it did feel far-fetched at times.
It also suffers from the Lost Effect where there’s only half a dozen interesting people in the entire universe and they continuously cross paths. Hundreds of years have passed and yet somehow these characters are two degrees away from one another.
In all, it does a bang up job of translating the game, balancing goofiness and gallows humour well, even if at times the script is a little loose with the rules of the world.