A live action Fallout series could be genius, if it’s done right

The Fallout video game franchise is being turned into a series for Amazon.

It’s oh so hard to develop a video game property into a good live-action (or even animated) series. Off the top of one’s head, you can probably say the Pokemon franchise, Castlevania, and the new Sonic movie are all in that category of good to great adaptations of beloved game franchises. Now it’s Fallout’s turn to try and get into that space.

The series is being produced alongside Amazon Studios which has many worried. Amazon’s public image has been severely caved in due to Jeff Bezos’ actions in recent months and many are becoming tired of how the company treats its employees. Though if you can get past that part of the situation, the fact that Amazon is making Fallout is great. Fallout a series so ripe with lore and history that it can easily translate to any long-form storytelling situation.

The franchise follows a new protagonist in just about every game and usually features the hero waking up inside of a nuclear fallout shelter several hundred years after the Great War. The hero then has to explore the irradiated hellscape, where they have to try to stay alive, hydrated, fed, and away from the more ghastly monsters that now roam what’s left the countryside.

The series also features more macabre and adult situations. Like a group of killer children in Fallout 3, or roaming packs of feral ghouls looking to tear you limb for limb. There’s even a sentient computer (several) and a person that violently and painfully turned into a tree.

Fallout the series won’t be for the faint of heart, mostly because the games aren’t. Yet, if the developers can keep the series rooted in its unique blend of 1950’s Americana, and nuclear wasteland aesthetic, then this series may just hit all the right notes.

Possibly the next great science fiction series.