While we can thank Hollywood for a nuclear payload’s worth of post-apocalyptic media, too little of it, frankly, has featured hulking suits of power armor. That’s about to change thanks to the upcoming Fallout TV series adaptation from Amazon Studios.
While a lack of official details about the Fallout show meant we were surviving on leaks and rumors, an appearance at Gamescom 2023 and an official release window announcement from Amazon makes it look like the production vaults are finally unsealing. Here’s everything we know about the Fallout TV series.
When is the Fallout TV series going to air?
The Fallout TV series will drop on April 12, 2024, as Amazon announced on Twitter. While we aren’t going to see it in 2023, knowing when we’ll get to wander the wasteland is a pretty good consolation prize.
Here’s a short Fallout TV series teaser from Gamescom 2023
Here’s the short Fallout TV series teaser that Todd Howard brought along at Gamescom 2023. Not the quality you’d want, but Howard said Bethesda wouldn’t be posting the video, and the audience did what you’d expect. Lots of expected Fallout imagery: vertibirds, powered armor, vaults opening, the works.
Where will the Fallout TV series be set?
Each new entry in the Fallout franchise shows us a new swath of the post-nuclear wasteland, and the TV series seems like it’ll do the same. Amazon announced the show’s location on Twitter alongside it’s release window: The Fallout series will be set in Los Angeles. Giving what I know about Vault-Tec, I’m sure whoever emerges from Vaults built in the nexus of the entertainment industry will be healthy, well-adjusted wastelanders.
Have we seen anything from the Fallout TV series production?
In October, Amazon released a single still image from the series which you can scrutinize below. Click the upper-right corner to enlarge.
That’s Fallout, all right. We can see the opened Vault door, a figure standing just outside it, and what appears to be a dead body lying nearby. Vault doors typically don’t open without some violence, so that all tracks. The figure leaving can’t be identified, but there’s the shape of a Pip-Boy on their wrist, so a dweller is definitely on their way out into the irradiated world.
We don’t know much about Vault 33 other than it hasn’t been canonically used yet, but historically Vault numbers below 50 indicate a west coast location. That jibes with reports that portions of the TV series are being shot in Utah.
Apart from that official image, we’ve also seen a handful of leaked set photos—which should obviously be taken with a grain of salt—that indicate that the show’s production is incorporating plenty of the setting’s established details.
In July 2022, a Twitter user posted some photos of an outdoor set of one of Fallout’s Super Duper Marts they stumbled upon while walking around Staten Island. Not long after, a set photo of Fallout’s hallmark power armor appeared, showing its suitably huge disassembled pieces. Judging from the details, it looks like the T-60 power armor variant that appears in Bethesda’s Fallout games, potentially indicating that the show will also focus on the eastern end of Fallout’s American wasteland.
Less than a month later, in August 2022, unofficial Twitter account BethesdaArabic posted some photographs of the TV show’s take on Vault interiors, complete with Vault-Tec propaganda posters. You can now find those leaked images on Reddit.
Things were quiet for awhile, until in July of 2023 more images surfaced on Reddit that were taken back in December of 2022. The pictures aren’t great quality, but they show off some outdoor locations plastered in the Vault-Tec logo, some old-timey ruined cars, and a later update from the original source—a user named Skunk on Discord—also showed off some Brotherhood of Steel power armor.
What is the Fallout TV series about?
Info on the plot has been very difficult to come by. We know it will deal with the irradiated, irreverent post-apocalyptic world we’ve come to know from the games, but not where on Earth it will be set, nor how long after the bombs fell.
Amazon has a bit of a delicate balancing act to manage here, as it will need to introduce the setting to a lot of viewers who have never heard of it while also making it feel authentic and satisfying to existing fans. If it were up to me, I’d say the best way to do that would be to focus on a region we’ve never seen in the games before. But I’d also bet we’ll get acquainted with iconic organizations like the Brotherhood of Steel early on in the show.
Who is starring in the Fallout TV series?
The Fallout TV series stars Walton Goggins, who recently voiced Cecil Stedman in Amazon’s animated adaptation of Invincible. You may also know him as Boyd Crowder from Justified, or for his roles in The Shield or Quentin Tarantino’s Hateful 8. We don’t know much about his character, though there are some rumors floating around that he may be playing a ghoul. Since some of these irradiated immortals still have memories of life before the war, that would make a lot of sense—giving the audience a proxy character with one foot in a more recognizable society, reacting to the horrors of the post-apocalypse much as any of us would. And Goggins definitely has the bone structure.
The one other confirmed casting is Ella Purnell, probably best known to PC gamers as the voice of Jinx in the Netflix series Arcane. She also played the teen version of Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent in the 2014 live action film. We don’t even know her character’s name, but if Goggins’ character turns out to be a ghoul with knowledge of the good ol’ days, it would make sense to pair him with someone younger who is more adapted to the post-apocalypse.
Who is writing and directing the Fallout TV series?
Amazon has named two showrunners to head up the project: Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner.
Robertson-Dworet has writing credits on Captain Marvel and the 2018 live action Tomb Raider film. Wagner comes from more of a comedy background, with writer and producer credits on The Office, Portlandia, and Silicon Valley. This might suggest that Amazon wants Fallout to have a stronger comedic side, which would be in keeping with the tone of the games—they often contrast horror and bleakness with madcap absurdity.
Lisa Joy, who has writer and producer credits on Westworld, Burn Notice, and Pushing Daisies, is attached to write at least one episode. Jonathan Nolan, brother of director Christopher Nolan, is also listed as a writer and a director for at least one episode. Nolan penned the screenplays for The Prestige and The Dark Knight, and has worked as a writer/director on Westworld and Person of Interest.
Will Vault Boy be in the show?
Unless there are no thumbs in this version of the future, surely he’s a shoo-in.
