The post-apocalyptic and video game-based series Fallout has been officially renewed for a new season by Amazon Prime Video. Receiving unexpected critical and commercial success, this interesting take on a long-running property will bring back the main cast and crew entering the new season.
Filming of the new season is expected to move from Utah, New Jersey, and New York to California, thanks to a $25 million tax credit. The first-season budget of $153 million set a new standard in video-game-to-television special effects. Questions remain about how much the new adventures could cost.
Long-time players and new fans also have to ask themselves what the success of Fallout and other recent video game adaptions means for the future. Could video games become the new comic books in terms of source material? Could the shadow of early failures like the first Super Mario Brothers movie be too big to ever truly step out from?
Fallout’s Success as an Adaption
Fallout is not a new series in gaming. The first title Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game was released in 1997. This was a spiritual successor to 1988’s Wasteland, placing the digital origins of the series back more than 35 years. With five main single-player entries, the complete Fallout timeline includes a huge amount of lore and history to draw from.
Thanks to the effects of the nuclear war and eponymous fallout, the entire setting has embraced a kind of desolate Old Western feel. This is balanced against the futuristic science fiction-based powered armour and weapons. Filling the world are monsters that feel close to something out of space fantasy.
Leveraging an all-too-relevant backing of overzealous nationalism and the over-reach of capitalist interests, Fallout can plant its more fantastical elements within a surprisingly contemporary framework. This makes finding stories from this setting to adapt to modern media a fairly easy task.
Borrowing from the Gaming Space
There are two primary reasons why gaming is being increasingly targeted as a focus for adapting to television. The first, from a strictly business sense, is money. Digital interactive entertainment has rapidly become an enormous and growing industry. Gaming has been worth more than music and movies combined for years.
This success isn’t unique to video games either, mirrored by the growing international interest in the online casino industry. The top real-money slot games available today bring in huge numbers of players, reaching audiences that traditional casinos don’t. Services like PlayStar and Hard Rock Bet use bonuses like free spins and deposit matches to raise new playing opportunities. As video games do with the technology of each new console release, each generation gets better.
The second part of what makes video games such a strong target for media adaptions is their popularity. Adults today have grown up with gaming, and the filmmakers of today understand this. We all remember the failed adaptions of early video game translations from people who didn’t understand the medium. Today, creative projects like Fallout are being placed in the hands of people who don’t just understand video games, they cherish them.
The Next Steps Forward
Video game to movie and TV translations today are more than the gimmicks they once were. Films adaptions like Sonic and Mario have been huge hits. Television series like Fallout and The Last of Us are some of the most celebrated recent media. This success sets the groundwork for a future where gaming is considered a more serious target for high-quality translations.
Of course, entertainment is still entertainment. Money and ideas being thrown around at the executive level mean attempts to capitalise on recent success are inevitable. Sometimes, this results in shows like Fallout that deliver for both newcomers and fans. Inevitably, however, we will see imitations that attempt all the of the flash with none of the substance.
It’s the nature of entertainment to follow the money, and recent gaming success stories don’t exist in a vacuum. The quality and fame of recent hits will open the doors to more great series and stories. It also means more opportunities for less respectful efforts. As we’ve seen with comic book adaptions, quality could be replaced by quantity. This makes it important for fans to always look before they leap. At least these TV series already come with our existing streaming platforms. As anyone disappointed by a £70 video game can tell you, things could always be worse.
