The Fallout TV show has been available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video for less than a week, and yet it has already seized the mindset of viewers and gamers alike, getting excellent reviews for its great quality and overall faithfulness to the source material.
That said, fans were confused when they learned of a specific event that took place a few years before the Fallout TV show (which is set in 2296). Beware, as we are entering spoiler territory.
In the series, we learn that the New California Republic capital of Shady Sands was nuked a few years back. However, Shady Sands was fine the last time players heard about it in Fallout: New Vegas, which is set only 15 years before the show. Moreover, at some point, the series mentions that ‘The Fall of Shady Sands’ took place in 2277, four years before New Vegas.
IGN spoke to Bethesda’s Todd Howard and series creator Jonathan Nolan to clarify the timeline. Howard said the show is 100% canon and does not retcon the game, explaining that the ‘Fall’ does not actually refer to when the nuke itself lands in the city, which is just after the events seen in Fallout: New Vegas.
Graham (Wagner) and Geneva (Robertson-Dworet) wanted to blow up Shady Sands. The first time they bring that up, you’re like, “what do you want to do?” I had actually an emotional reaction to it given the history of that location in the franchise from Fallout 1. And we talked through it, and it was, “this will be a pretty impactful story moment that a lot of things anchor on.” And just so people hear it, we’re careful about the timeline. There might be a little bit of confusion at some places, but everything that happened in the previous games, including New Vegas, happened. We’re very careful about that. All I can say is we’re threading it tighter there, but the bomb falls just after the events of New Vegas. That’s when Shady Sands blows.
And so when they brought that up, threading that needle to make sure that that was a moment that landed in the show, that also moved things forward in terms of what’s going to be happening in the world of Fallout. That was a big one that we talked about.
Howard also said that, despite the nuke having obliterated their capital, we likely haven’t seen the last of the New California Republic in the franchise.
One of the takes that we always have is to approach things very locally when we’re doing Fallout. We’re careful about saying what’s going on in other parts of the world. And we always take this view of, communication is difficult. And look, if you look at the background, the NCR is a wide-ranging sort of organization and group across not just California, but other places. So the show focuses on this period of time and this group here, and that’s what we can say right now. But I don’t think you’ve heard the last of the NCR.
In another interview, co-showrunner Graham Wagner told The Wrap that Deathclaws could have made it into the first season but will definitely be in the second one.
We wanted to get Deathclaws, but we didn’t want to just throw it away. It’s such a monumental piece. We want to save something for Season 2 to be able to do it properly, not just added on to the massive worldbuilding we had to do already in Season 1. So Season 2, we’re very excited to finally tackle one of the most iconic elements of the games.
To be clear, Amazon has not officially confirmed a second season for the Fallout TV show yet. However, given the ratings, it’d be extremely weird if there wasn’t one.
