What you need to know
- The Fallout franchise is being adapted into a TV series on Amazon Prime Video.
- Showrunner Jonathan Nolan has collaborated extensively with Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard on the project.
- The first teaser trailer for the series is here, showing a hyper-violent wasteland filled with mutated creatures.
- The Fallout series is slated to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on April 12, 2024.
We've finally got our first trailer for the next big Fallout experience.
While there's no new games on horizon, the Fallout TV show is on the way, with showrunner Jonathan Nolan (Westworld) collaborating with Bethesda Game Studios executive producer Todd Howard to craft a new tale that's set after the events of Fallout 4.
Developed by Amazon Prime Video, the show seems to feature the same staples we all know, including clueless Vault Dwellers, irradiated monstrosities, and the Brotherhood of Steel, and the show is scheduled to kick off on April 12, 2024. You can take a look at the first trailer for the show below:
What Fallout games should you play before watching this?
Unlike some other video game properties that have been adapted into movies and TV, this show is set after the events of all the games so far, so it's not going to be one-to-one adaption of a story and characters we already know about.
As a result, you don't really need to play any Fallout games before watching it if you're just curious and want to have fun. If you do really feel the desire however, the two games I'd most recommend are Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4, both of which can be played on an Xbox Series X|S console through backward compatibility. These two games were developed by Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Game Studios, respectively, both of which are now Xbox first-party development teams.
Fallout: New Vegas has an acclaimed story that'll familiarize you with some of the West Coast factions, while Fallout 4 is the most recent single-player Fallout adventure, and will be the best gameplay experience while also letting you know about the Brotherhood of Steel, who seem to feature heavily in the upcoming show.
An enhanced version of Fallout 4 is on the way and was originally slated to launch at some point in 2023, though it now seems unlikely to be arriving before the end of the year. Leaked documents also indicate Fallout 3 is being remastered, but if true, this is still a ways off.
Analysis: Go ahead and take my bottle caps
Obviously it's just a teaser trailer, and the exact execution could be lacking, but so far this looks great. The team behind the show seems to really understood the tone, not just the aesthetic of Fallout, and it was so great seeing the gore and horrible mutated monsters. I'll definitely be ready and waiting when this show launches next year. Maybe I'll even be done playing Starfield by then and ready to dive into the upgraded version of Fallout 4...
