Prime Video’s 2-Part Post-Apocalyptic Series Is One Of Its Best

Prime Video has featured some excellent dystopian TV shows, but the streaming platform took a major risk by adapting Fallout, which is based on the extremely popular Fallout video game franchise. Fallout is an excellent game series, and it has a huge and very passionate fanbase, but the world of Fallout is immense and full of lore, and this could have been hard to adapt.

The Fallout game series is based on 1950s America, but with a twist. The games combine the post-apocalyptic and sci-fi genres with a retro atmosphere and soundtrack.​​ The TV show not only manages to capture the unique setting of the games, but created an entirely new story that does not rely on game knowledge, allowing new viewers to get invested.

Prime Video’s Fallout Made The Franchise Mainstream

The Fallout games have always been extremely popular, winning numerous prestigious awards, like Best Game at the 2016 BAFTA Game Awards with Fallout 4. That said, few people had heard of Fallout outside the gaming world before the TV show aired. This is not unusual, as video games rarely reach mainstream culture, and standout characters like Lara Croft are the exception rather than the rule.

In general, video games usually need to be adapted for TV or theaters to reach mainstream culture. While the best TV shows based on video games can attract a new audience to the games, when an adaptation is bad, the gaming community generally tries to separate the two media. Fallout‘s success on Prime Video is a level of success that few could have foreseen.

Video game adaptations often polarize critics and audiences, but the first season of Fallout had consistently high Rotten Tomatoes scores from both groups, and the second season surpassed the first, earning a 96% positive score from both. Fallout season 2 set a Prime Video streaming record, and the show’s success has brought mainstream attention to the video game franchise.

What Makes Fallout Different From Other Post-Apocalyptic Shows

Recent years have brought TV fans some great post-apocalyptic TV shows, from the epic The Walking Dead franchise to the bingeable but harrowing The Last of Us. However, both of these take a bleak and realistic tone, with a few exceptions found in the cyberpunk anthology, Love, Death + Robots. On the other hand, Fallout has a refreshingly different feel.

Fallout has a distinctive visual style that blends several aesthetics, including the bright colors of vintage Americana and the vast deserts and machinery of Mad Max. It shouldn’t work, but the show makes it all fit together well, even including the satirical humor that made the games stand out. Part of the show’s success is due to the perfect casting, which includes the voice actors.

Fallout stars Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan, and Walton Goggins, who all give spot-on performances, and Matt Berry provides the voice for the terrifying but hilarious Mr. Handy robots. The Junk Town visit in the first season proved that even minor characters can be scene-stealers, and Fallout is worth a binge for the acting and bizarre humor alone.

Fallout Avoided A Video Game Adaptation Trap

The creators of the Fallout TV show could have attempted a direct adaptation of one of the games. However, these rarely work, especially in such a rich world where lore would have needed to be cut for the show. Alternatively, Fallout could have risked alienating fans of the original games by changing the story too much, as the Resident Evil franchise did.

Instead, Fallout‘s creators avoided a video game adaptation trap by following a similar strategy to Arcane, another video game adaptation masterpiece, which also stars Ella Purnell. Fallout makes a few changes to the games but stays in the same world, expanding on the existing lore through an original plot rather than attempting to retell a story that the games already told.

The strategy has allowed Fallout to develop without being constrained by the game’s plotlines, attracting new viewers while including game Easter eggs. It has been confirmed that Fallout season 3 is happening, which proves that this approach is the best way forward for video game adaptations. Fallout has the chance to expand even further, as there is plenty of lore left to explore.