Fallout (franchise)

• 1. Introduction

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  In the Fallout franchise, the world ends in a two-hour nuclear exchange on the morning of the 23rd of October 2077, eastern daylight time. Everything in the series grows from the wreckage. Fallout is an American media franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games, created by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky at Interplay Entertainment. Its stories follow the descendants of the survivors, and the games unfold across the first half of the 3rd millennium. Several questions run through the series. Why does a ruined future look like a 1950s advertisement? Who built the underground shelters, and what were they really for? And how did a series born at Interplay end up as the subject of a court fight over who owns it?

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• 2. From Wasteland To Vault 13

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  In 1988, Interplay released Wasteland but could not publish it alone. Electronic Arts handled distribution, because Interplay had not yet become a publisher. Founder Brian Fargo said the company made Wasteland to explore a post-apocalyptic setting. Later, Interplay decided to publish games as well as develop them. Fargo hoped to keep using the Wasteland property but could not win the rights back from Electronic Arts.

  Fargo and his team chose to invent a new world instead. They studied what had worked in Wasteland and built a fresh game around those strengths. Designer Chris Taylor named three major inspirations: the 1959 novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, the 1981 film Mad Max 2, and the 1995 film The City of Lost Children. The first Fallout games arrived nearly ten years after Wasteland, and Fallout is regarded as its spiritual successor.

  Released in October 1997, Fallout sends the Vault Dweller out of Vault 13, an underground shelter in Southern California, in the year 2161. The shelter's water chip is failing, so the player must find a replacement somewhere in the Wasteland. Once that is done, a larger task follows. The player must stop a group of mutants led by a grotesque entity called the Master. Black Isle Studios developed the game.

  The rules of the game nearly came from somebody else. Fallout was originally meant to run on the GURPS role-playing system. Then GURPS creator Steve Jackson disagreed with the game's violent material, and Black Isle Studios developed its own system, called SPECIAL. Even so, SPECIAL stayed heavily based on GURPS.

  Fallout 2 followed in October 1998 and jumps ahead eighty years. The player becomes the Chosen One, the actual grandchild of the Vault Dweller. First comes a rescue, because the Chosen One must save the village of Arroyo from famine and drought. After that, the Chosen One must fight the Enclave, the remnants of the pre-war United States government and the shadow government behind the vault project. The sequel added an improved engine, a way to set the attitudes of party members, and the ability to push people who block doorways. Humor ran thicker too. Special random encounters referenced Monty Python and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and some dialogue broke the fourth wall to mention game mechanics.

  The name SPECIAL is an acronym for seven attributes: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. Attributes describe a character's innate abilities and stay largely constant, though drugs, power armor, eye damage from a critical hit, or certain perks can change them. Skills measure the chance of succeeding at tasks such as firing a gun or picking a lock. They are percentages, and they can run well past 100 percent at a higher cost per point. At character creation the player picks three tag skills, which rise at multiples of the normal rate. The first two games and Fallout Tactics used the system, and modified versions powered Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, Fallout 76 and Fallout Shelter. A fantasy game called Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, known early in production as Fallout Fantasy, borrowed it too. So did a canceled Black Isle project named Torn.

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• 3. Atomic Age Style

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  Vacuum tubes, not transistors, power the computers of the Fallout world. The reason is that history in the series splits from our own after 1945, at the end of World War II. In this atompunk golden age, atomic physics and vacuum tubes drive scientific progress, while transistors matter little. The result is a strange mix. Advanced robots, nuclear-powered cars and directed-energy weapons share the world with 1950s-style computers and televisions. The United States divides itself into 13 commonwealths, and Cold War paranoia keeps shaping American life well into the 21st century.

  The novella A Boy and His Dog is described as a major influence. Its hero Vic and his dog Blood scavenge the desert of the Southwestern United States, stealing for a living and dodging marauders, berserk androids and mutants. One description says it "inspired Fallout on many levels, from underground communities of survivors to glowing mutants." The Mad Max films left a mark as well. In the first game, one of the earliest armors is a one-sleeved leather jacket that resembles the jacket in Mad Max 2.

  Fallout satirizes the fantasies of surviving a nuclear war that Americans entertained in the 1950s and 1960s. It borrows from 1950s pulp science fiction magazines and superhero comics, all rooted in Atomic Age optimism about a nuclear-powered future. Laser weapons and boxy robots in the style of Forbidden Planet fill out the Raygun Gothic look. Ruined buildings show Art Deco, Streamline Moderne and Googie architecture, and direct-energy weapons resemble those used by Flash Gordon. The few surviving vehicles are styled like 1950s cars. Menus echo the advertisements and toys of the Atomic Age, and in-game billboards and brochures carry the same 1950s feel. The earlier games added a soundtrack by The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers and Louis Armstrong. Critics faulted several spin-offs for lacking this retro styling and for adding modern features to weapons and other models.

  The Pip-Boy, short for Personal Information Processor-Boy, is a wrist computer handed to the player early in most of the main games. It manages quests, inventory and battle, and it displays the player's statistics. The Pip-Boy 2000 in Fallout and Fallout 2 is the same unit, first used by the Vault Dweller and later inherited by the Chosen One. Fallout Tactics has a modified 2000BE, while Fallout 3 and New Vegas use a Pip-Boy 3000. New Vegas also offers a golden version called the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion, given for completing one quest in a certain way. Fallout 4 uses the 3000 Mark IV, and Fallout 76 uses the 2000 Mark VI.

  Vault Boy is the mascot of Vault-Tec, and he illustrates every statistic and attribute on the Pip-Boy. From Fallout 3 onward he also models all the clothing and weaponry. Leonard Boyarsky designed him, basing the look partly on Rich Uncle Pennybags from the Monopoly board game.

  Power armor appears in every game in the series and serves as a symbol of the franchise. It is a powered exoskeleton that shields the wearer from enemy fire and lets them carry extremely heavy weapons with ease. Boyarsky shaped the original design from a helmet rendering made for the game's cover and cinematics. Cain said the tubing and vents of The City of Lost Children helped inspire the helmet. Boyarsky loved the industrial, mechanical look so much that he revised the in-game armor to match his concept art.

  When Bethesda took over the series, lead art director Istvan Pely said power armor was the first asset built for Fallout 3, because it was an "iconic element of the series." Engine limitations then forced the suits in Fallout 3 and New Vegas to match ordinary clothing in height and width. Many critics and fans disliked this change. PCGamesN reported on a fan mod for New Vegas called Titans of The New West 2.0, which restored the height, weight and heft of the original design. Fallout 4 changed course again. Suits became customizable objects that the player climbs into, powered by fusion cores, and the studio aimed for a design that was "bigger, more imposing, more realistic and fully functional." Players can even collect suits alongside the game's base-building features.

  The armor has a fictional origin too, and it begins with a defense contractor called West Tek.

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• 4. Before The Bombs

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  In April 2052, the Resource Wars began, more than a hundred years before the first game takes place. Oil depletion had caused an energy crisis, and global scarcity pushed nations into conflict. A war between the European Commonwealth and Middle Eastern states ran from 2053-2060 and collapsed both regions. The United Nations disbanded on the 26th of July 2052. The United States invaded Mexico in 2051 and annexed Canada by force in 2072. A disease called the New Plague, which appeared in 2053, devastated the American mainland.

  As pressure mounted, the American government grew increasingly jingoistic and authoritarian. Political dissidents and Chinese-American citizens were arrested and sent to re-education camps, where they were tortured and even experimented on. China invaded and occupied Alaska in 2066, which began the decade-long Sino-American War, lasting from 2066-2077. By 2077, the United States had retaken Alaska and invaded mainland China.

  Power armor sat at the center of that fight. In series lore, a group of defense contractors called West Tek developed it after the army asked for a "walking tank" for its mechanized cavalry. Prototypes built from 2065-2067 failed, yet the research produced a compact fusion cell. Those cells worsened relations with China, which already faced an energy crisis from heavy dependence on fossil fuels. Power armor went into battle in 2067 and proved extremely effective. By 2077 the technology had peaked, with units able to cut a swath through Chinese forces. That success prompted the Great War, a last-ditch nuclear exchange between America and China that destroyed most of modern civilization. The 2019 publication Fallout: A Tale of Mutation reads the armor as a symbol of pre-war North American power. It is also a reminder of how helpless the United States proved against nuclear weapons.

  The government had foreseen the outcome decades earlier. In 2054, it began a nationwide project to build fallout shelters called Vaults. The Vault-Tec Corporation ostensibly designed them as public shelters, each able to support up to a thousand people. About 400,000 Vaults would have been needed, yet only 122 were commissioned and built. Each was self-sufficient and could in theory keep its residents alive indefinitely.

  The project was never meant to repopulate the country. Most Vaults were secret, unethical social experiments, designed to test how different environmental and psychological conditions affected the people inside. Seventeen control Vaults worked as advertised, but they were shoddy and unreliable because most of the funding went to the experimental ones.

  One experimental Vault held clones of a single individual. Another kept its residents in suspended animation, and a third exposed them to psychoactive drugs. In one, residents were told to sacrifice an inhabitant every year. One held a single man and a crate full of hand puppets. Another split its residents into two hostile factions, and two Vaults had lopsided ratios of men to women. One Vault had a door that never fully closed, which exposed its dwellers to nuclear fallout. A cramped Vault gave every dweller a firearm, and another was deliberately overcrowded. Several Vaults exposed their residents to the Forced Evolutionary Virus, which created posthuman and animal-hybrid mutants, including the monstrous Super Mutants.

  Many of these experiments ended in disaster and the collapse of the Vault. Others stayed sealed even after radiation outside had reached safe levels. Some abandoned Vaults were later taken over by raiders, Super Mutants and other mutated creatures.

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• 5. After The Bombs

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  Bottle caps serve as the everyday currency of the Wasteland, the name for the United States after the war. Barter is common too, because so much infrastructure lies in ruins. The country was left severely depopulated, with large expanses of property decaying from neglect. Nearly all food and water is irradiated, and radiation combined with mutagens of varied origins has mutated most life. A few areas escaped almost unscathed and still hold clean water, plants and animals, but they are exceedingly rare. Most cities and towns stand empty, looted or deserted in favor of small makeshift communities.

  Some humans who could not enter the Vaults survived the blasts and were changed by radiation into ghouls. Their lifespans stretch far beyond normal, but their bodies develop widespread necrosis. Many lose their hair, speak in a raspy tone, and carry permanent deformities. Ghouls often resent ordinary humans, out of jealousy or because of discrimination. They also hate being compared to zombies, and the word is a great insult. A ghoul who keeps absorbing high radiation can suffer irreversible brain damage and turn feral, attacking almost anything on sight.

  Deathclaws roam the wilderness as one of the series' most recognizable creatures. Humans deliberately created them as biological weapons before the Great War. They escaped into the wild, thrived in the wasteland and became apex predators. Critics praised their design and the fear they provoke. Their popularity inspired mods about taming them as pets or using them in combat, and both ideas were later added as official features.

  Five human factions stand out: the Brotherhood of Steel, the New California Republic, the Enclave, Caesar's Legion and the Institute. The Brotherhood began when U.S. Army Captain Roger Maxson led a group of soldiers in a mutiny after learning of the Forced Evolutionary Virus experiments. They declared themselves independent of the government, but the outbreak of the Great War stopped the rebellion before it began. The defectors waited out the war in the Mariposa Military Base. They later emerged, reconnected with other survivors and headed to the Lost Hills bunker to start anew. The Brotherhood became a cult-like organization that collects and preserves technology, and it is the most widespread user of power armor.

  In 2142, a group of dwellers from Vault 15 founded the town of Shady Sands under their elder Aradesh and his daughter Tandi. The town became a major economic power in the southwest. It united with other hubs of civilization to form the New California Republic, also called the NCR. Vault 15 also produced raider gangs, including the Jackals, the Vipers and the Khans.

  The Enclave was a secret cabal of wealthy industrialists, military personnel and influential politicians. It worked in the shadows and held significant control over the American government. Over time it turned continuity-of-government protocol into a claim to be the real United States and to rule the North American mainland.

  Edward Sallow, a former citizen of the NCR, founded Caesar's Legion in 2247. The Legion is an imperialistic slaver society and a totalitarian dictatorship, built on conquering and enslaving tribal societies. To enforce unity, it loosely models itself on the military of the Roman Empire, borrowing its language and aesthetics.

  The Institute is a reclusive scientific society descended from the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It emerged as a major post-war power in the 2200s and regards itself as a bastion of knowledge in a dying world. Its proudest achievement is the Synths, androids that resemble humans almost exactly. They work toward the organization's goals by inserting themselves into the other major factions.

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• 6. Interplay Unravels

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  In 2000, Interplay spent several months on Fallout Extreme, a squad-based, first and third-person tactical shooter planned for Xbox and built on Unreal Engine. It was canceled before it left the concept stage. Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel did ship, in early 2001, with development handed to Micro Forté and 14 Degrees East. It was the first Fallout game that did not require turn-based fights, and the first to let players customize the skills, perks and combat actions of their squad. Players had no dialogue options, and the setting moved to the Midwestern United States. Reviews were generally favorable. Most criticism targeted the game's mismatch with the story of the first two games rather than its play. A multiplayer mode pitted squads against squads controlled by other players. In 2020, Emil Pagliarulo said elements and lore from Tactics were used in later Bethesda entries.

  Poor sales of Tactics ended a planned sequel in December 2001. Fallout Tactics 2 had been developed by Micro Forté, and it was originally conceived as a sequel to Wasteland.

  The trouble came to a head in December 2003. Budget cuts forced Interplay to dismiss its PC development team, and Van Buren, the codename for Black Isle Studios' version of Fallout 3, was canceled. Van Buren would have used 3D graphics instead of sprites, along with new locations, vehicles and a modified SPECIAL system. Its story would have broken from the bloodline of the Vault Dweller and the Chosen One, and players could have influenced the various factions. Another project had helped doom it. Development of Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 started before the first game was finished, and that work caused Van Buren's cancellation. Pieces of Van Buren later turned up in Fallout 3, its add-ons and New Vegas.

  In 2004, Interplay closed Black Isle Studios and kept producing Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. It was the first Fallout game on consoles, for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, and the last one developed by Interplay. The action role-playing game follows an initiate of the Brotherhood of Steel on a suicidal quest to find several lost Paladins. It has no companion characters in combat. Heavy metal from Slipknot, Devin Townsend and Killswitch Engage replaced the vintage soundtrack of the earlier games. The canceled sequel was planned for the same Dark Alliance Engine, with fourteen new weapons, ten new enemies, two-player co-op and four playable characters with different fighting styles. A new stealth system would have let players stalk enemies or use a sniper rifle, and characters who could not use the rifle would have gotten a turret mode.

  Interplay, threatened with bankruptcy, sold the full Fallout franchise to Bethesda Softworks. It kept the rights to a Fallout MMO through a back license in April 2007 and began work on that game later in the year. The project, called Fallout Online and earlier Project V13, was a joint effort with Masthead Studios, and it entered production in 2008. It got as far as a beta stage.

  On the 8th of September 2009, Bethesda sued Interplay for copyright infringement over the Fallout Online license and the sale of Fallout Trilogy. Bethesda argued that Interplay had no right to sell the trilogy through Steam, Good Old Games or other online services. It also claimed that Interplay had not reached full-scale development or the 30 million in secured funding that the license required. Interplay countersued and insisted it could sell the trilogy online and had met both conditions. It also argued that if the second contract were voided, Fallout would revert to Interplay. Bethesda could then make Fallout 5, but it would owe 12 percent royalties on Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4 and their expansions, plus interest.

  Bethesda lost its first injunction on the 10th of December 2009. It replaced its lawyer and filed a second, arguing that Interplay had back-licensed only the name Fallout and nothing else. Interplay answered that the contract required the MMO to have the look and feel of Fallout. It said a game that missed the funding and development terms could still be released if all Fallout material, such as locations, monsters, settings and lore, were removed. The court denied the second injunction on the 4th of August 2011, and Bethesda lost its appeal. Bethesda also sued Masthead Studios and asked for a restraining order, which was denied. The jury trial that Bethesda requested on the 26th of October 2010 became a trial by court, because the contract said legal matters would be settled that way. The trial began on the 12th of December.

  The dispute ended in a settlement on the 2nd of January 2012. Fallout Online was canceled and all rights in the franchise passed to Bethesda. Bethesda later said Interplay had sold it the full rights to Fallout Online for 2 million dollars. Interplay's right to sell and merchandise Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics expired on the 31st of December 2013. Project V13 was revived as an unrelated project called Mayan Apocalypse.

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• 7. The Bethesda Era

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  On the 28th of October 2008, Bethesda Game Studios released Fallout 3 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It is set 200 years after the nuclear war, around Washington, D.C., in a region called the Capital Wasteland. The player is a dweller of Vault 101 who must flee when the Overseer tries to arrest them because their father left the Vault. Once outside, the player is dubbed the Lone Wanderer and searches for that father. The game replaced 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat with 3D graphics, a free-roam world and real-time combat, using the Gamebryo engine. Metacritic averages were 94 for PC, 92 for PlayStation 3 and 93 for Xbox 360, making it the highest-rated title in the series. Awards included IGN's 2008 Overall Game of the Year, Xbox 360 Game of the Year, Best RPG and Best Use of Sound, and from E3, Best of the Show and Best Role Playing Game.

  Not every fan celebrated. Members of No Mutants Allowed, one of the oldest Fallout fansites, were vehement supporters of the first two games and objected to departures in story, mechanics and setting. Minor complaints included food staying unspoiled after 200 years, wood-framed houses surviving nuclear blasts, and Super Mutants appearing everywhere at early levels. Serious complaints covered the quality of the writing, a lack of believability, the switch to a first-person action format, and a world that reacted too little to the player. James Stephanie Sterling of Destructoid called such fan groups "selfish" and "arrogant." Sterling argued that a new audience deserved a chance, and that new titles would never have been made if the series had stayed as it was in 1997. Luke Winkie of Kotaku saw it as a matter of ownership, and said longtime fans were "not wrong" to have grievances.

  Fallout: New Vegas arrived on the 19th of October 2010, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is set in the Mojave Wasteland in 2281. The protagonist is the Courier, left for dead after an ambush while delivering a valuable package. Multiple factions fight for the region, with the NCR, Caesar's Legion and the enigmatic Mr. House as the key powers. The game runs on the same engine as Fallout 3 and is praised for its branching narrative and for the freedom it gives players. Hardcore Mode adds survival pressure by making players manage hunger, thirst and sleep. The setting draws on real-world Las Vegas, with the New Vegas Strip and Hoover Dam among its landmarks. Four expansions followed: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road. The launch was rocky and plagued with bugs, yet New Vegas became a cult classic, sustained by a large modding community. Many fans consider it the pinnacle of the series and still hope for a sequel or a remaster.

  Fallout 4 reached players on the 10th of November 2015 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It is set in Boston and the surrounding Commonwealth in 2287. The Sole Survivor, voiced by either Brian T. Delaney or Courtenay Taylor, takes shelter in Vault 111 and emerges 210 years later after suspended animation. The search for a son taken from the Vault drives the story. Bethesda confirmed mods for Xbox One and, after lengthy negotiations with Sony, for PlayStation 4. A virtual reality version followed on SteamVR on the 11th of December 2017. The redesigned dialogue interface drew mixed reactions. Fans built mods that added subtitles and showed what the character would say before choosing, as earlier games had. Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku called the writing "thin."

  Fallout 76, released on the 14th of November 2018 for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, is the first online multiplayer game in the franchise. It is set in West Virginia, and most of its monsters come from regional folklore. At launch it had no human non-player characters, and the Wastelanders update later added them with dialogue. Metacritic lists it as the lowest-rated title in the series. IGN gave it five out of ten, writing that "Fallout 76 fails to do any of it well enough to form an identity." PC Gamer gave it six out of ten, praising the evocative setting, large world and combat while criticizing bugs, a poor interface and repetition.

  In June 2022, Todd Howard said that Fallout 5 would begin development after The Elder Scrolls VI is finished. In July 2025, Fallout 5 was reportedly "fully greenlit," though the reporting outlet said it was unclear which studio, if any, was leading production. Key Bethesda studios were busy with Starfield expansions and The Elder Scrolls VI at the time.

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• 8. Beyond The Games

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  Fallout Shelter reached iOS on the 14th of June 2015 and Android on the 13th of August 2015. The player acts as the Overseer, building and managing a Vault, sending dwellers on scouting missions and defending against attacks. Unlike the main games, it has no ending. Its microtransactions include Nuka-Cola Quantum, the premium currency, lunch boxes holding random items, pet carriers that boost a dweller's stats, and Mister Handy or Snip-Snips robots that gather resources. A PC version came on the 15th of July 2016, Xbox One on the 7th of February 2017, and Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 on the 10th of June 2018. The Chinese company Gaea Mobile developed a sequel, Fallout Shelter Online, which added PvP and gacha mechanics. It launched in China in June 2019, then reached seven more territories across Asia, including Japan and South Korea, on the 1st of June 2020. In late 2016, Zen Studios also released a Fallout pinball table based on Fallout 4.

  The tabletop side began in 2001 with Fallout: Warfare, a wargame based on the Fallout Tactics storyline. Christopher Taylor wrote the rulebook, which used a simplified SPECIAL system and needed only ten-sided dice. It came on the Fallout Tactics bonus CD with cut-out miniatures, and offered five factions, vehicles, four game types and 33 units. Fantasy Flight Games announced Fallout: The Board Game on the 8th of August 2017, for one to four players exploring locations from Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. It was released on the 30th of November 2017. Modiphius Entertainment released Fallout: Wasteland Warfare in March 2018, and Fallout: The Roleplaying Game digitally on the 31st of March 2021. That role-playing game uses a 2d20 system, in which an action is resolved by rolling two twenty-sided dice and counting successes. On the 8th of March 2024, Wizards of the Coast released four Fallout decks for Magic: The Gathering, representing Survivors, Legions, Scientists and Mutants. The set contains 146 new cards. In January 2026, Modiphius released a card game called Fallout: Power Play for two to four players.

  In 1998, Interplay Entertainment founded Interplay Films and named a Fallout film among its first projects, alongside Descent and Redneck Rampage. In 2000, Interplay confirmed that a film of the original game was in production. Brent V. Friedman, screenwriter of Mortal Kombat Annihilation, was attached to write a treatment, and Dark Horse Entertainment was to produce. The division was disbanded without a film, and the treatment leaked online in 2011. Bethesda expressed interest in a film in 2009. After four extensions of its trademark without use, it filed a Statement of Use in January 2012. The next month it produced a special feature, the Making of Fallout 3 DVD, which was accepted as a film on the 27th of March 2012. That ended the need to keep re-registering the mark. Voice actor Ron Perlman once said that he would like to reprise his role as the Narrator if a film were made. In 2016, Todd Howard said Bethesda had turned down film offers but had not ruled out the possibility.

  In summer 2020, Vault Boy appeared as a Mii Gunner costume in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The T-60 Power Armor came to Fortnite as a cosmetic outfit in the Chapter 5 Season 3 Battle Pass. On the 18th of June 2024, Activision announced a Call of Duty collaboration, and the bundle was released two days later. It included "Vault 141" outfits for Soap, Price, Ghost and Gaz. A second collaboration, announced in December 2025 for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, added Lucy, The Ghoul and Maximus as playable operators. It also added a mode in which killed players respawn as feral ghouls. Physical merchandise has had a bumpier history. A ThreeZero Power Armor figurine cost nearly $400 in 2016. The $200 Power Armor Edition of Fallout 76 included a replica helmet whose paint job and voice box were criticized as cheap. Red Nuka-Cola helmets sold at GameStop were recalled because of mold contamination. Victoria Rosenthal also wrote The Vault Dweller's Official Cookbook, with recipes for Nuka-Cola and BlamCo Mac N' Cheese, timed to Fallout 76 and the Great War's in-game date.

  Amazon Prime Video announced a Fallout television series in July 2020, written, created and executive produced by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan. In January 2022, Amazon officially moved forward, with Nolan directing the pilot and Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner joining as showrunners. Filming was completed on the 28th of March 2023. Ella Purnell plays an inexperienced vault dweller venturing to the surface, and Walton Goggins plays a ghoul mercenary. The show is canonical to the games and set in 2296, the furthest point along the franchise timeline. Its eight-episode first season premiered on the 10th of April 2024, and a second season was ordered later that month. In May 2025, ahead of the second season's premiere set for the 16th of December 2025, Amazon renewed the show for a third.

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