In a scene from the brand-new, critically acclaimed series Fallout on Amazon Prime Video, the upbeat lead character, having just escaped from her underground commune into a post-apocalyptic hellscape, is trying to talk a ferocious mutant into abiding by the Golden Rule, which states that you should treat people as you would like to be treated.
The Key to Fallout Popularity
I anticipated that the mutant, or Ghoul, as they were more appropriately called, would respond with some cynical platitude in reply, perhaps a paraphrase of a Thomas Hobbes quotation. Instead, he responds with the ideal reply, “Yeah, well, the wasteland’s got its own golden rule.” “You must be distracted by nonsense every single goddamn time.”
That rejoinder captures the essence of what makes Fallout—the video game series and the television show—so fantastic. Fallout has always been about getting sidetracked by nonsense, after all. The six complete games that Bethesda Softworks presently publishes have expansive, sandbox-style landscapes that put an emphasis on immersion and freedom. Some people explore the wasteland for hours on end without ever getting to the main stories, which are somewhat boring. The characters generally just stand about and give exposition, the narratives are organised like choose-your-own-adventure books, and the heroes are lifeless player proxies.
In a scene from the brand-new, critically acclaimed series Fallout on Amazon Prime Video, the upbeat lead character, having just escaped from her underground commune into a post-apocalyptic hellscape, is trying to talk a ferocious mutant into abiding by the Golden Rule, which states that you should treat people as you would like to be treated.
I anticipated that the mutant, or Ghoul, as they were more appropriately called, would respond with some cynical platitude in reply, perhaps a paraphrase of a Thomas Hobbes quotation. Instead, he responds with the ideal reply, “Yeah, well, the wasteland’s got its own golden rule.” “You must be distracted by nonsense every single goddamn time.”
That rejoinder captures the essence of what makes Fallout—the video game series and the television show—so fantastic. Fallout has always been about getting sidetracked by nonsense, after all. The six complete games that Bethesda Softworks presently publishes have expansive, sandbox-style landscapes that put an emphasis on immersion and freedom. Some people explore the wasteland for hours on end without ever getting to the main stories, which are somewhat boring. The characters generally just stand about and give exposition, the narratives are organised like choose-your-own-adventure books, and the heroes are lifeless player proxies.
However, players play Fallout for the world, not the storylines. The style is described as “retro-futurist,” or as Beaver Cleaver might have described it. Pop standards play on the radio while players traipse through the dilapidated remnants of 1950s Boston, D.C., and Las Vegas, their streets festooned with faded war posters and “Nuka-Cola” advertisements. You could come upon a group of neo-Romans or a robot maid dusting the skeletons of her owners. There are two villages: one in the crater of an undetonated bomb, where the locals revere the bomb as a god, and the other built inside the shell of an aircraft carrier. A violinist begs you to locate the last Stradivarius that is left in one quest.
That vast universe ended up being ideal for television. Amazon received the Fallout franchise equivalent of a turnkey house, complete with well-developed lore, recognisable IP, and a refrigerator full of Nuka-Cola. Most importantly, there were no characters or plotlines that were gratuitous. It didn’t have to find out how to make Lara Croft less of a sex object or how to make the Master Chief more three-dimensional, for example. All the show had to do was take its pre-made wasteland, toss in a couple of characters, and allow them to become distracted by nonsense.
The crap in question spans from an axolotl the size of a hippo to a robot fascinated with vivisection. The story revolves around three characters: Walton Goggins, an armor-clad crusader, and a zombified bounty hunter. Ella Purnell plays the naive do-gooder in the story. Thankfully, these individuals aren’t just boring player stand-ins. They have strong beliefs about who they are at first, but the wasteland erodes those ideas until neither they nor we truly know what they are capable of. One of the characters remarks, “That right there… is the closest thing we’ve had to an honest exchange so far,” after two instances of posturing culminate with them pulling each other’s fingers off.
In between the video game-esque antics, the show is frugal with those moments, and they fall like ball bearings. Even still, the show excels in the chance meetings—the farmer in mud pants proposing marriage at first sight, for example. The charlatan who feeds chickens to people and then disappears into the desert, chewing the scenery for a few lines. the kind of endearingly peculiar NPCs—“non-player characters,” for those who aren’t gamers—that you might encounter in the games.
Not all adaptations gain from the unmemorable plot of their original works, such as Fallout. The popular multiplayer strategy game League of Legends has a token tale despite being packed with characters and background. However, Arcane, the Netflix adaptation of League of Legends, skillfully crafts an intriguing and complex story from this narrative foundation. Similar to that, 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves was an overly enjoyable fantasy adventure that drew from 50 years of lore. Super Mario is undoubtedly the king of setting-over-story, having ruled the genre since before the fall of the Iron Curtain. His film, The Super Mario Bros. Movie from the previous year, barely slightly improved upon the standard narrative of war crimes against turtles. However, it did provide for an enjoyable moviegoing experience.
Because game tales are generally bad, game films have historically had a bad reputation. All gamers who have had their hearts broken by the terrible remakes of countless great series like Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted, and more will have to face this harsh reality. Indeed, game narratives are frequently intentionally “bad.” The requirements of the medium, which must engage users and enable hours of mechanical activity, constrain their tales. The main characters in video games are typically boring and neutral because they are player stand-ins. Clichés become advantages rather than liabilities since playing games makes you feel as though you’re in a movie. This is why games are interesting. When we played Resident Evil, we thought, “Holy shit! This reminds me of a zombie film. We thought, “Ugh, this is just another schlocky zombie movie,” after seeing it.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. HBO successfully turned the beloved game The Last of Us—which won over both viewers and Emmy voters—into a critical and financial smash with a tale that was suitable for television and a setting that wasn’t too expensive to film. However, The Last of Us was a true exception in a number of respects, acclaimed by many as the first popular video game adaptation that was genuinely excellent. It’s unclear if other video games, like BioShock, Red Dead Redemption 2, and God of War, which are praised for their storylines, will translate to the big screen as easily.
I still firmly believe that the Fallout paradigm should be used going forward for video game adaptations to the big screen and television. To have a chance at selling the intellectual property (IP) to a streaming service, game developers don’t have to drastically alter what makes their products so unique and engaging. All we need is a game that’s enjoyable to play with friends, leaves its plot at the door, and has an abundance of fantastical nonsense to keep us distracted every darn time.