Fallout TV series does one thing better than The Last of Us

Fallout and The Last of Us may be the two greatest video game adaptations of all time — but Prime Video’s new series has gone the extra mile.

Once upon a time, a so-called curse blighted video game movies; more often than not, they were under-budgeted, pseudo-Hollywood schlock that merely cashed in on an IP (House of the Dead, Max Payne, Silent Hill: Revelation, and Alone in the Dark are especially egregious examples).

After a run of watchable, even good adaptations (Arcane, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Werewolves Within), HBO’s phenomenal The Last of Us proved true greatness was possible. The times they are a-changin’, and the proof is in the irradiated pudding with Fallout, a bold new imagining of Bethesda’s iconic wasteland.

While The Last of Us mostly adhered to the source material, Fallout is a brand-new story that’s still canon to the larger universe. There’s no Lone Wanderer or Courier here, but the essence of the world remains intact, whether it’s the Brotherhood of Steel’s power armor, its atompunk aesthetic, the soundtrack — which supplements The Ink Spots’ ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’ with a new playlist of mid-century soothing bangers — and other giddy name-drops and sneak peeks.

Two things can be true. Both shows are undoubtedly the crème de la crème of their genre; epic and emotional, yet comprehensive to those who’ve never picked up a controller. But Fallout has to be credited for doing one thing its HBO contemporary didn’t: having the courage to step beyond the timeline of the games and tell its own story.

Excusing a few dramatic flourishes and its rightfully praised expansion of Bill and Frank (*sobs*), The Last of Us is almost a one-to-one translation of Naughty Dog’s original game — and that’s okay! Even a decade after its release, its design pushes the boundaries between cinema and interactive storytelling, and it could be the greatest story ever told in gaming. Why would a TV series meddle with that?

Fallout was always going to be more complicated. Even if it was a direct adaptation of one of the games, how could it possibly capture the freedom they afford? That’s not to say their plots aren’t gripping — New Vegas’ warring over the Mojave wasteland is still the franchise’s peak — but you don’t just play Fallout for the story: it wants you to explore and test your morality in every skirmish, whether it’s with a Deathclaw or some poor sod you disintegrate with a nuke-loaded Fat Man.

Even then, the TV series — developed by Westworld’s Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy — threads the needle superbly, essentially creating a standalone Fallout 5 that’s a thrilling experience for longtime players and those diving in for the first time. Finding resonance and a reason to watch for both camps is no small feat, and it’s a bigger accomplishment than porting one brilliant experience to another medium (even if was done near-flawlessly).

It was the main reason Bethesda chief Todd Howard turned down so many scripts over the years: there was no shortage of pitches for a Fallout 3 movie, but what would be the point? “I did not want to do an interpretation of an existing story we did… I was like, ‘Yeah, we told that story.’ I don’t have a lot of interest seeing those translated. I was interested in someone telling a unique Fallout story. Treat it like a game,” he told Vanity Fair.

Perhaps The Last of Us will consider stories outside of Joel and Ellie’s orbit; it’s a big world out there, and Fallout has crossed over the horizon.

Fallout is streaming on Prime Video now. You can find out everything we know about Season 2, and six burning questions the next season needs to answer.