Fallout: A New Reference in Video Game Adaptations
Fallout is Amazon MGM Studios’ latest bet for the Prime Video service and the latest adaptation of a work born in another format. After hits like The Boys and Invincible became references on Prime Video, showing how Hollywood is looking at existing works in other media to obtain rich and interesting stories, the giant collaborated with Bethesda to achieve a new success, another property born in video games, with this Fallout series.
A Post-Apocalyptic Universe
For a universe of gamers, Fallout is a well-known and highly respected name, responsible for countless moments that are remembered over the years. The series takes you to a post-apocalyptic environment, in which nuclear bombs devastate the United States and leave the land desolate, uninhabitable. The rich take refuge in huge underground shelters and stay there to survive, with the notion that they will never return to the surface. Descendants are born in the shelters, the Vaults, without ever seeing the sunlight, but after hundreds of years, humanity begins to walk again through the remaining deserts, where the ashes of civilization show what once seemed eternal.
The inhabitants of the shelters have no idea of the dangers that have formed in the meantime. Many survived on the surface, but society has collapsed, humanity has regressed to a chaotic state, a new kind of Wild West, but with mutants and terrifying creatures that have emerged due to the effects of strong radiation. The Fallout series starts at Vault 33, where you will meet Lucy, one of the three main protagonists. Amazon Prime Video allowed us to preview the episodes and to avoid revealing too much, let’s try not to talk about specific events, let’s limit ourselves to the first three episodes for now, but we can already say that Fallout is a new reference for video game adaptations.
A Cinematic Experience
Lucy (Ella Purnell), Ghoul (Walton Goggins), and a naive recruit from the Brotherhood of Steel (Aaron Clifton Moten) are the main figures in the series, three different perspectives that perfectly showcase the Fallout universe. Through them, you will get to know the main “factions” of Fallout, you will learn different ways of being in this post-apocalyptic reality, and you will have access to numerous game references. Not to mention the moments that expand on concepts introduced by Bethesda in the interactive experiences, in a very timely and intelligent way.
Fallout is an original story, different from what you have in all the games, but it follows similar rules. Packed with spice, satire, violence, and visceral scenes, Fallout has absolutely epic moments that can excite any video game fan. It is a golden moment in video game adaptations, the result of a production team that paid extreme attention to detail, always aiming to show respect and knowledge for the work. Just mentioning that even the VATS effect (when the action slows down and you follow some bullets causing explosions in the bodies of opponents) was recreated spectacularly.
Audiovisual Immersion in Fallout Series
Furthermore, we cannot fail to mention the sound, more specifically the use of audio to convey the brutality of various moments. The use of music closely follows what is done in the games, which gives an even more spectacular tone to the most violent scenes, being an incredible aid in achieving that effect that makes you feel like “it’s really Fallout, but instead of a game, it’s a series”.
Fallout: A New Highlight for Prime Video
With Fallout, Prime Video gains a new series to proudly display in its highlights, while the video game industry can celebrate another adaptation that respects the works we love so much, now exposed to a much larger audience. The creative team, supported by Bethesda, perfectly captured the essence of Fallout (whether through the environment itself, satire, characters, or use of sound), the actors deserve praise, and the best part is feeling that on one hand you have that feeling of watching something that looks like a video game, but at the same time is a complement that expands in ways that in a video game might not make sense. Sublime.
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