Hey, it’s Zangado here, and today is the day for a different kind of video. As it’s no surprise to anyone, superhero movies have been overdone, Hollywood noticed, and now the next big thing for media expansion is games. They have been getting new series and movies, in the form of animations or Live Action.
And Bethesda asked me to talk about the Fallout games’ extensive history, but I’m also going to give you the heads-up on the new Live Action series that’s about to air.
A post-apocalyptic world: What is Fallout?
In this video, I’m going to set the stage for those who intend to watch it but have never played any of the games in the saga. So grab that light snack, get comfortable, and come along with me.
Fallout is the famous game series that mixes RPG and FPS, which, by the way, is turning 27 this year, created by the legendary producer at Interplay, Tim Cain. The first game had no more than 30 people in its development, with a budget of 3 million dollars. An isometric-view RPG was born, delving deep into a post-apocalyptic story accompanied by character relationships surviving in this world full of monsters.
And what is Fallout? In English, the title means something related to radioactive particles. The world of Fallout is an alternate timeline from ours, diverging after World War II and culminating in a nuclear war in October of 2077. It has a retro-futuristic aspect, as the houses, clothes, hairstyles, music, customs, and everything else, seem like the United States of the 1950s, but we also see robots, supercomputers, and futuristic devices at the same time, while other things like TVs and radios remain old, because technologies that would have evolved into today’s designs were never made.
The games take place in 2161, across the continental US, now known as “the Wasteland”, the devastated lands of the Earth that remain after the nuclear wars that occurred in 2077 in the game universe. This was the result of a war known as the Great War, involving various nations, but mainly the United States and China as enemies. It occurred due to the lack of fuel, which created tension between countries and progressed to conflict. The war lasted only a few hours and affected the entire surface of the planet and life on it with a massive atomic blast sweeping through the atmosphere. Thus, it practically turned the planet into a giant desert in ruins with few remaining locations that were still damaged, and covered by monsters and mutant beings created from radiation.
The games have a strong artistic style and message, inspired by post-war American propaganda from the 1950s, a period filled with various cultural developments on continents and countries, and in which the United States was at the center of the world after its role in World War II. With various things happening there, the war changed everything, and men and women had to deal with the consequences of those global events and had to establish themselves in a new society, with new customs and cultures, while developing their own convictions. It’s in this scenario that Fallout bases its reality, humor, history, and setting.
A characteristic of the saga is its artistic style filled with animations and drawings, advertisements and posters from American war propaganda, those old posters that were like “Hey, we want you! Join the armed forces”. Fallout takes this concept, and satirizes and parodies the false American patriotism and blind ideas held at the time that tried to catch young men, especially the poor.
For this, they use the famous aspects of the series, the Pip-Boy and the Vault Boy, modern technologies with a retro aspect. The Pip-Boy is a mobile computer device, attached to people’s arms which, translated from its acronym, PIP, means personal information processor. It presents a series of data and information about everything. Could we see it as an evolution of the cell phone? Our cell phones today could be Pip-Boys according to Fallout’s vision in ’97…
The Pip-Boy was made by RobCo, a technology and robotics corporation, in partnership with Vault-Tec, a corporation that existed before the war, which, under contract with the government, developed a series of bunkers, nuclear shelters throughout the country. As you may know, many real billionaires in our world have created bunkers, which makes us even more desperate, but anyway… continuing.
122 vaults were created, which would not save even 0.1% of the national population. However, the real intention of the vaults was to conduct secret social experiments that could be applied in society, like the Pip-Boy itself. And fundamentally, they wanted to preserve and convey the idea of an American corporation guaranteeing the survival of Americans and the American way of life, all strategically positioned. Besides, of all 122, only 17 protected those inside, the others were made as bases to experiment on their occupants.
This strategy by Vault-Tec included another propaganda element, the Vault Boy, the company’s mascot that appears in art, posters, tutorial animation on procedures related to vaults, and technologies. Sharing similarities to characters like Mr. Monopoly, from a famous board game, the Vault Boy quickly became popular among gamers.
Another distinctive look in the game would be its clothing, the vault suit. A suit developed with the intention of being used inside the vaults, combining comfort and mobility, with the need for mass production for the inhabitants, being resilient and easy to clean. With blue, gold, and black tones, it created a quick identification for the game. In the vaults, we have a hierarchy, commanded by Overseers, with some vaults holding elections, and others remaining in office indefinitely.
And these are the elements that form the core of Fallout. With each new game, we have a new customizable protagonist within this universe, most being a resident of one of these vaults, with their own motivations, and needing to venture out into the Wasteland.
The chronology of the Fallout games
The first protagonist, known as the vault dweller, needed to leave his vault 13 in Fallout 1 to search for a water chip, responsible for water recycling and pumping the water machine. Fallout 2 from ’98 advanced 80 years after Fallout 1, with the protagonist being a descendant of the dweller from the first one who needs to save his village from an imminent drought, going in search of a GECK, a survival kit developed by Vault-Tec, which is considered miraculous and can help a vault survive in the post-nuclear war world.
The franchise continued until Bethesda released Fallout 3 in 2008. Fallout 3, my favorite, became a resounding success, popularizing the franchise and turning it into an FPS RPG, with the option of a third-person view, giving a new dimension and liveliness to the world, now being able to freely explore the devastated lands in a series of quests. Taking place in 2277, our protagonist is a resident of vault 101, which was sealed since the beginning of the war as a social experiment, leaving the setting of California and now going to Washington DC. The protagonist is known as the lone wanderer, and needs to go after his father who fled the vault for mysterious reasons. The wanderer is 19 years old.
Then we had Fallout New Vegas in 2010, set in 2281. In it, we play a courier from the Mojave Express who gets shot in the head en route to his delivery destination and is then left for dead. He is saved by a robot named Victor, who takes him to a doctor and helps him recover. Now the courier is seeking revenge or answers from the man who shot him and stole the platinum chip, a chip he was supposed to deliver to New Vegas, a place that was once Las Vegas. Finding himself amid three major factions that oppose each other, the game gives the freedom to choose whom to join and shape your story, showing the nature of humanity or what’s left of it.
So, onto Fallout 4, back to 2077, before the nuclear attack, when a family and their newborn son are admitted to vault 111 and are met by a representative who came to take them, but they are caught in the middle of the war. The family is soon put into cryogenic sleep and awakened over 200 years later by two strangers who capture the couple’s baby and kill the wife, or husband depending on whom you chose to be your character. Afterward, they send our main character back to sleep, and he wakes up again later, needing to set out in search of his son and revenge against the strangers in a completely futuristic and different world. And those are the main games.
The latest entry in the franchise to date came in 2018, which is still relevant and receiving content: Fallout 76. A title that works as a prequel, with its story set way before, more precisely in 2102, a few years after the war. It takes place in what was once West Virginia, after the war known as Appalachia. The plot focuses on a resident of Vault 76, with the vault dwellers’ mission being to rebuild civilization. Initially, our character is assigned by the overseer to handle a mission related to protecting a nuclear weapons arsenal in the region as a secret mission. But soon, the story takes another, more sinister turn involving the Scorched Plague that is ravaging all the region’s human and creature life, with a series of twists and turns.
After years of growth, the latest content from Fallout 76 came out just recently by the end of March, with the Americans Playground update, a part of the expansion that explores the seaside of Atlantic City in New Jersey. The city is an explorable map full of content, new scoring systems, quests, expeditions, and new rewards, as well as a series of new NPCs and a new Cryptid enemy, the classic and mythical Jersey Devil, with the popular folkloric story coming to life in Fallout.
Exploring a new media: The Fallout series
And here, we come to the new entry in the Fallout universe. Todd Howard and Bethesda decided to invest in a live-action TV series format. Announced in June 2020 by Amazon in partnership with Bethesda, with Todd not wanting to adapt any game, but rather bring a new story within this universe. Last year, we had the cast reveal, as well as trailers more recently. The series is conceived by the directing couple Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Jonathan and Lisa are creators of acclaimed modern science fiction series, with Jonathan being the younger brother of the directing legend Christopher Nolan, with whom he has worked on various of his films.
The series brings a cast of younger actors, with the exception of its main cast, which includes the protagonist Lucy, played by English actress Ella Purnell, known for drama and fantasy films and some series. Lucy is the young resident of the main vault, who has also never left her vault and in the series will leave it for the first time. Then we have Aaron Moten as Maximus, a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, which inhabits the Fallout universe since the first game. It is a post-war paramilitary organization that operates in American territory and with the intention of preserving advanced technology and regulating its use, known as one of the most iconic organizations of the wastelands. Aaron still has few films and series in his resume.
Finally, we have the excellent actor Walton Goggins as a ghoul, a mutant gunslinger and bounty hunter. Ghouls are a race of mutant post-humans in Fallout who are survivors of the nuclear holocaust, directly affected by radiation that makes them assume a somewhat zombie-like appearance. Walton plays a ghoul known as Cooper Howard, who has already shown a villain or anti-hero vibe from the trailers. The series will also feature Kyle MacLachlan, playing the Overseer and Lucy’s father. He is an actor from the old days who played the protagonist of Dune in the 1984 film, and it’s worth noting that Dune is also one of the inspirations for Fallout.
So far, there is no more information about the series, but what you heard today is enough information for you to be able to watch it even if you haven’t played the games. Now, if you intend to play, remember that there are Fallout saga videos here on the channel.
And well, that’s it, folks. A big hug, thanks, bye, and until… Until next time!
Article editing: Lucas Savicki
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