It looks like rather than being a one-to-one adaptation of the video games, Amazon’s Fallout series will keep up with the tradition set by Bethesda, that being by offering a new and unique story told within the game’s universe.

Showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner revealed this during an exclusive press event we attended. They spoke about their approach to making a live-action adaptation of the Fallout series, which, although it isn’t a beat-to-beat remake based on any of the games, does follow the tradition set by the game’s creators.

“Yeah. It’s set in the world of Fallout, but it’s a new story that comes, sort of, after the events we’ve seen. So it really is, the show is built on like 25 years of creativity and thinking and building.” Wagner explains, “… we sort of thought the best thing to do is to continue that, versus retread it. Because that’s sort of what has worked with Fallout over the years. It’s traded hands, it’s changed, it’s been altered, and it’s a living thing. And yeah, we kind of felt like we ought to take a swing at trying to build a new piece on top of all of that.”

Dworet added, “Yeah, and I think, you know, the themes of Fallout are also what really drove us to want to adapt this with Jonah (Jonathan Nolan, executive producer on the series) and we were really especially drawn to the social commentary inherent to the idea of these vaults. Graham is a citizen of Canada. 

I’m a dual citizen of the US and New Zealand, and we often talk about how those two countries are sort of celebrated as these wonderful, peaceful utopias and “What everyone was like there,” and the reality is not everywhere is like those countries. But what would it mean if those countries were to open their borders and let everyone in, and everyone could have a better life? Well, they would change, right? They would be the same. So, we saw the vaults as basically a mirror to that, right? This idea is like, “What if we create a vault that is very peaceful and wonderful?” But what does it mean that not everyone gets to live there, and people suffer on the surface?”

Jonathan Nolan also chimed in about how the project came to be, noting that understanding that each game was different from each other and applying that to the live-action series played a hand in getting the show to take off.

“I think one of the things that’s so powerful about the Fallout series is that every game is a little different. Different characters, a different setting, and a different look into this extraordinary universe. And so, we came out of that lunch with a handshake deal (between Bethesda’s Todd Howard) that we were gonna try to make this work.”

While the news that it is not an exact remake of one of the games may be a bit of a disappointment, it does make the most sense to go with this approach, as the world of Fallout is a vast one brimming with untold stories. One of those untold stories is Vault 33, the very vault the series will be focusing on and where its characters will go after it opens its doors to the world for the first time since the Nuclear bombings.

I, for one, am excited to see what this new story in the universe will offer, and luckily, we won’t have long to wait as the Fallout TV series will exclusively debut on Amazon Prime on April 11. You can watch the latest trailer here.