A Look At Fallout’s Evolution from Game to Show

Amazon’s Fallout isn’t taking the typical TV adaptation approach that just speedruns the greatest hits of the game it’s inspired by. 

Instead it’s playing a smarter game: same universe, same rules, different people. And lots of new stuff. The show’s core vibe is very Fallout of course, with bright retro-futurism on top and grim apocalypse underneath. With jokes lurking in every broken vending machine too.

We follow Lucy, a Vault dweller who leaves the safety of Vault 33 to search for her kidnapped father and learns that the surface isn’t a noble Wasteland adventure. 

But what about the games that started it all? We’ve teamed up with our friends at G2A.COM – a leading digital marketplace filled with great deals on several Fallout titles – to take a look at the original series and see what’s different from the TV show. Just before season two drops as well. But beware, spoilers await you up ahead!

Fallout 1 & 2

Let’s start with the ones that started it all. Fallout 1 puts you in the shoes of a Vault Dweller sent out to find a water chip. Little do they know that they’ll find themselves in quite a bit of a pickle: a much bigger conflict with Super Mutants led by their mysterious Master.

Fallout 2 once again sets you on a search for another MacGuffin: the G.E.C.K. Your home village of Arroyo is slowly failing to sustain itself and this gizmo might just be the thing that’ll save it for the generations to come. Oh, and you’re playing as a descendant of the original character from FO1. Around 100 years later.

This means that the Vault Dweller – SPOILER ALERT – kicked the bucket. Luckily, they produced offspring to carry their legacy forward. 

In terms of how the show compares to the originals, it’s firstly set in the West Coast – just like Fallout 1 & 2. But it’s set in the future  – year 2296, to be exact – and focuses on an original storyline.

Fallout 3

Bethesda’s famously divisive sequel brought the mainline series back after a decade or so. What’s the point of contention? Well, it’s 3D. And it’s in first-person instead. And it plays more like a shooter at times because of that. 

As a Lone Wanderer straight outta Vault 101 you set out to find your father in the Capital Wasteland. As you progress, you get embroiled in the Brotherhood vs. the Enclave conflict. 

How does the show compare to Fallout 3? Well, it doesn’t have that much in common by the looks of it, since FO3 is set in the East Coast as opposed to the first two games’s West Coast setting. 

But the emotional engine seems pretty much the same. You have a Vault kid that sets out to look for their family, only to discover that the surface doesn’t care about your personal narrative. 

Fallout: New Vegas

Here’s a game that arguably redeemed the series following Fallout 3. Not that the predecessor was a fiasco; on the contrary, it’s a very good game in its own right. It’s just that Fallout: New Vegas did a lot of things better narrative-wise, bringing back the vibe of the originals. 

The story sees The Courier (your character) get shot, survives, and ends up in the struggle for New Vegas and Hoover Dam.

And how does the show compare to Fallout: New Vegas? Well, Season 2 is going to be modelled after the fan favorite. New Vegas is famous because it refuses to hand you one correct ending. And Season 2 is reportedly leaning into that, treating the game’s multiple endings like conflicting perspectives rather than pinning down one neat canon.

Fallout 4

The Sole Survivor wakes from cryo sleep, hunts for their stolen child, and gets dragged into a Commonwealth civil war between the Minutemen, Railroad, Brotherhood, and the Institute.

Yup, that’s Fallout 4 in a nutshell. Once again made by Bethesda, this one kind of disappointed the fans with its simplified RPG aspect. But it excels in everything else: the design, the freedom, the whole base building thing, etc. 

So, if you’re not too keen on this whole role-playing thing, but just want to experience the Wasteland, this is your go-to game.

If you’ve never played it before or bounced off Fallout 4 years ago, now’s a perfect opportunity for you to either return or experience the Commonwealth adventure for the first time. 

How does the show compare to Fallout 4? Fallout 4 is built around agency: build settlements, choose a faction, shape outcomes. The show flips that: Lucy isn’t shaping the wasteland so much as the wasteland is shaping Lucy.

Sometimes with character development, sometimes with blunt trauma.

Fallout 76

Set in 2102, Fallout 76 is about Vault 76 opening early in the timeline. Players explore Appalachia as the society is still in the potential rebuild stage—along with plagues, factions forming, and ongoing wasteland weirdness.

F76 is iconic as Bethesda’s first multiplayer game. And while initially not very well received, it steadily grew its player base, peaking with the release of Amazon’s TV show.

How does the show compare to Fallout 4? Well, the shared theme is Vaults as experiments, and corporations as the real final boss. Fallout 76 also leans into “the world before the world,” and the show’s fixation on pre-war decisions has that same DNA.

Where does the show differ? With regards to the timeline, mostly. Fallout 76 is early post-war; the show is centuries later (2296), where the consequences have had time to mature into full-blown ideology and myth.

What else is different about the show compared to the games?

For instance, Ron Perlman doesn’t deliver his iconic “War, war never changes…” monologue in the show. But in all fairness, it’s referenced by a couple of characters.

You also get to see some new weapon designs that are exclusive to the series.

Pip-Boy and the SPECIAL system also work a bit differently in the show, for obvious reasons. The same goes for Ghouls: there are new rules as to becoming one of them.

The Fallout TV show also focuses more on pre-war flashbacks than the games. After all, it’s more about the story, while the games are more about immersing you in the harsh reality of the Wasteland. Additionally, the series has a different take on who dropped the bombs and kicked off the nuclear war.

And the interconnected Vaults – 31, 32, and 33 – are an entirely fresh experiment, a new concept in the franchise.

There are more differences, similarities, and references for the keen fan eye, but that you’ll have to discover on your own. 

What’s coming in Season 2?

Season 2 is officially steering into the franchise’s most beloved frying pan: the Mojave. The story continues straight from Season 1 and follows Lucy and the Ghoul on a journey toward New Vegas, with the former still chasing her father, and still learning that answers in Fallout don’t come free of charge.

What’s confirmed/credible so far:

• Premiere date:  December 17, 2025, on Prime Video, with episodes releasing weekly.
• New Vegas is in: the season will introduce the location in a major way.
• Bigger scale: “more madness, more humour, more violence,” and generally “expands everything.” 
• Mr. House: Justin Theroux is playing Robert House, which is about as “New Vegas-core” as it gets. 
• How it handles New Vegas endings: the show may approach the game’s multiple endings through conflicting stories/perspectives instead of one definitive truth. 

Expect the Strip, expect faction fallout, and expect the series to weaponize the idea that in the Wasteland, history is just the loudest rumor.