Is the Fallout TV show connected to the games?

Whether you’re a Vault Dweller, a Lone Wanderer, or a Courier, you’re probably wondering something: is the Fallout TV considered canon, or is it not connected to the games?

Bethesda’s iconic video game franchise kicked off with 1997’s Fallout, but it wasn’t until 2008’s Fallout 3 that it shot into mainstream popularity, bolstered further by 2010’s Fallout: New Vegas, 2015’s Fallout 4, and 2018’s Fallout 76 (despite its initial rocky reception).

All of the games are set within a single continuity spanning hundreds of years, following characters as they try to survive decades after the Great War, when nuclear bombs transformed America into a dangerous, irradiated wasteland.

Ahead of Fallout’s premiere on Prime Video, fans and newcomers to the series may be curious if the show is considered canon alongside the games — here’s what we know.

Is the Fallout TV show canon?

Yes! The Fallout TV show is a brand-new story within the same universe as the games, so it’s definitely canon.

While the games are set between 2102 and 2287, the Fallout TV show primarily takes place in 2296, the farthest point in the timeline so far. Its singularity was a big appeal for Bethesda chief Todd Howard, who’d suffered through the stop-start development and pitches for movie adaptations since the late noughties.

“We view what’s happening in the show as canon,” he told Vanity Fair, also assuring care was taken to make sure the show’s events and references weren’t out of step with the larger established lore — that said, the show made some changes, and Howard loved them.

“That’s what’s great, when someone else looks at your work and then translates it in some fashion. I sort of looked at it like, ‘Ah, why didn’t we do that?'” he added.

“I did not want to do an interpretation of an existing story we did. That was the other thing — a lot of pitches were, you know, ‘This is the movie of Fallout 3…’ 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. It gives the creators of the series their own playground to play in.”

When Jonathan Nolan hired co-writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, they all agreed it’d be wiser to tell a new story, rather than rehash “something that has been done beautifully as a
game. Then, the question became how ambitious could we get with that story, which is where Geneva and Graham took over,” he explained.

You can also read our review of the Fallout TV series, check out its incredible soundtrack, and find out what other TV shows you should be streaming this month.