The Art of the Adaptation
Bethesda Game Studios Finally Brings Fallout to the Small Screen
As video game adaptations continue to ramp up in recent years, Bethesda Game Studios is finally getting its first with Fallout, Prime Video’s high-profile TV series that debuted last night. And, unsurprisingly, it’s not something that Bethesda boss Todd Howard took lightly.
“This is something that I said no to for like, a decade,” Howard says. “Everyone wanted to make a (Fallout) TV show or a movie, and I was like, ‘nahhh.’ I wasn’t really feeling it.”
IGN got the chance to catch up with Howard on the red carpet of Fallout’s premiere in Los Angeles earlier this week. We only had a few minutes with Howard, who also served as an executive producer on the TV show, but that was still enough to pick his brain a bit about what convinced him to finally adapt Fallout – and the chance of other Bethesda properties getting similar treatment.
Working with the Right Creative Partners
For Fallout, it was all about finding the right creative partners.
“I met Jonah – Jonathan Nolan – and I love his work: The Dark Knight, Interstellar, Person of Interest, and then Westworld, and he and I kind of hit it off,” Howard told IGN’s Benjamin Watts on the carpet. “And I felt like, ‘hey, do you wanna do this? I’d like to approach it like it’s another entry in the games.’ Like, let’s do a new location, new story, let him and his crazy lunatic people he works with kind of do what they do, and we’re really happy with how it turned out.”
And while fans are just starting to dive into the small-screen version of the wasteland, as envisioned by show creators Nolan and Lisa Joy, critics have already awarded it with glowing reviews. IGN, for one, gave it a 9/10, calling it “among the best video game adaptations ever made,” and there’s already been reason to believe Season 2 is in the works.
Will Other Bethesda Properties Get the Same Treatment?
So, with those encouraging signs, does Howard think other Bethesda properties will be getting the adaptation treatment?
“I don’t know. There’s nothing in the works,” he says. “Everybody asks, like, about Elder Scrolls, and I keep saying no also. And I would approach those – I’ll probably say no. You never know if someone’s gunna click. But I think this really came out of, ‘we think things are aligning to do a high-quality job.’ It wasn’t forced. It was kind of a natural relationship and ‘hey, this sounds really cool.’ As opposed to, ‘we should have a show,’ right? It never came from that.”
“I can’t predict the future,” Howard adds, “but this has been one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever done, and we’re just kind of over the moon, everybody in the studio with seeing it this way.”
The Art of the Adaptation
The Fallout TV series is largely telling an original story, but of course, it’s set fully in the world and lore of the games. That approach, Howard says, gave them the chance to explore that world in some fun ways.
When asked what absolutely needed to get into the TV show, Howard says, “number one, we need a moment where someone leaves a vault.”: “We can kind of view it through their eyes – we try to do that in the games, obviously – and kind of earn that moment of like, what is it like for them to leave the safety?”
But after that, it was about expanding the world that we already know from the games.
“The other thing I wanted to do in the show that we do a little bit in Fallout 4 and some other places is show the past,” he continues. “Because one of the best things about Fallout is the world before the bombs fell. It’s really unique, this post-nuclear future that we wanted to have and then it all goes wrong. And the show has the ability to show the past in a way the games never did.”
And, just for fun, we had to ask Howard’s best survival tip for when the real world inevitably becomes a Fallout-esque wasteland.
“Antibiotics,” he says. “Go for the antibiotics. And high-calorie food.”
Duly noted.
Fallout is now streaming on Prime Video. For more, check out our exclusive digital cover, featuring interviews with the show’s creators and cast.
