SINCE the late ‘90s, Fallout has been a huge name in gaming. Created by Tim Cain and initially developed by Interplay Productions, the series was bought out by Bethesda Softworks early on. It’s now one of Bethesda’s most popular IPs, matching titles like The Elder Scrolls. In 2024, Bethesda released a Fallout TV adaptation on Amazon Prime, which revived the series and gave it a whole new fanbase.
The show follows Lucy Maclane, Cooper Howard (The Ghoul), and Maximus as they travel the wastelands. The first season was fairly good; it had a good mix of its own material and references to the games, making it entertaining for both new and old fans. While the second season picks up immediately after the first, the show felt like it tried to become a reference to the games entirely instead of being its own thing, and it falls flat when it actually tries to do something new.
The second season was released in late 2025, promising a modern take on the fan-favorite Fallout: New Vegas setting. New Vegas is the name given to a preserved Las Vegas, which is still thriving after the nuclear apocalypse. The game takes place in the Mojave Desert, leading the player to travel to New Vegas to recover a package that was stolen from them. New Vegas has a rich environment and various factions the player can side with, such as The Legion and the New California Republic. The game is a fan favorite, so the show must handle it carefully.
Old fans of New Vegas aren’t happy over the changes the show makes. The season, set years after the game, reveals a Mojave in ruins. The NCR is nearly destroyed, with only a handful of survivors; the Legion is in the midst of a civil war, and Deathclaws have overrun the New Vegas Strip. A lot of the changes the show makes revert to established lore, sometimes even going back on something said in the first few episodes of the season.
The plot of the second season kicks off with Lucy and The Ghoul traveling together, Lucy hunting her dad, and The Ghoul searching for his family. Maximus is climbing ranks within the Brotherhood of Steel after helping acquire cold fusion, something capable of near-infinite power.
By the end of the season, not much really changes. Cold fusion was taken by Maximus again, now fleeing the Brotherhood. Lucy finds her dad, but his story ends with no real closure, and The Ghoul discovers that his family left the vaults and went to Colorado.
Fans really did not like this season. The writing included lots of plot holes and poor decisions; in some cases, it ruined established lore, and the lack of any real conclusion to the storylines so far has made the story uninteresting. The third season could still be good, but only time will tell. It’s a hard show to recommend, especially to existing fans. Lancers who haven’t heard of Fallout before, or who don’t care for the story that much and are just looking for something to watch, give it a shot!
