- During an exclusive interview with Beebom, Jonathan Nolan admitted that it's impossible not to invalidate some of the choices players make in Fallout: New Vegas.
- He highlighted how the 15-year time jump from the game's events gives the writers some room to maneuver.
- Nolan also stressed that the creators approach every decision with a great deal of love and respect for the franchise.
Amazon Prime’s Fallout Season 2 dares to adapt the setting and characters of Fallout: New Vegas – easily the most beloved and hotly debated entry in the franchise. 15 years on from the initial release of its jankiest builds, FNV remains culturally relevant, with themes and topics that still mirror modern-day society. Despite its age, the title also holds up as a third-person RPG, especially when it comes to choice and consequence.
In the game, players take on the role of a wandering Courier, whose decisions during quests can have a major impact on the Mojave wasteland. The choices they make determine which factions maintain influence, which characters survive, and how New Vegas is governed for years to come. There’s a consequence to nearly every decision in the game, with multiple ways of approaching the task in the first place.
This level of player agency is nothing less than an achievement for a video game. But for the live-action adaption of said video game, it’s a massive headache. What choices you deem canon? What consequences do you display on screen? How do you manage the barrage of fan backlash that is bound to happen? There’s a multitude of things to consider before you can even write a season of compelling science-fiction.
To help understand how the Fallout show’s creators are tackling this challenge, we sat down with director Jonathan Nolan for an exclusive chat, and got some interesting answers.
Fallout Season 2 Invalidates Some of FNV’s Choices
We asked the Westworld co-creator if there were any measures taken to ensure that the Courier’s many choices aren’t invalidated by the TV show. He responded by admitting that towing that fine line is difficult:
It’s really hard, right? I mean, there are so many (choices), with these games, one of the things we love about these games, you can kind of destroy everything, right? You could do whatever you want.
He countinued, “That’s one of the principal virtues of the games that Todd makes, beyond Fallout, all the games that that Bethesda makes. But in Fallout in particular, if you can see a place, you can go there. If you can see something, you can destroy it. You can read it, you can absorb it, it’s just this, this infinite playground.”
Nolan went on to give us a direct answer, “It would be impossible not to invalidate all those choices. We knew from the beginning that that would be impossible.” As it turns out, this is partly why the show is set years after the events of the game (15 to be exact): “You know, L.A. is not a new locale for the franchise, but it’s been a while since the games were there. So it offered us breathing room, right? Enough room for us to maneuver our own story.”
While the show might be taking some creative liberties, especially in regards to the canon, Nolan stressed that these decisions are being taken with care. The director stated, “We try as hard as we can everywhere to, and hopefully it shows, approach these games with a great deal of love and respect. And the entire creative team has played an awful lot of Fallout, so hopefully that’s evident.”
