Amazon has released the full trailer for their upcoming Fallout TV series, and it showcases enough from the games to let the fans know: “We got you.” The Fallout fan in me started to glisten with glee when I noticed some of my favorite references they threw in. They range from an item used in game to references to series lore, and each one has me more interested in watching the show. Seeing that it aims to convey the core of Fallout’s story for both fans and newcomers alike leaves me with a lot of hope. Here’s a few things that stuck out for me the most.
The Vault Boy Bobbleheads
It is impossible not to fall in love with the Vault Boy. The corporate mascot is so iconic, but something that I hadn’t considered prior was his own origin. Thankfully, Todd Howard told Vanity Fair that we’re actually going to actually see where he comes from. The Vault Boy was only ever a marketing tool for Vault-Tec; he was never a character or essential lore to understanding the world of Fallout, but he’s become the most recognizable aspect of it. However, seeing the various bobbleheads throughout the trailer is enough to let anyone know that this is definitely a Fallout story.
“I Don’t Want to Set The World On Fire”
The cinematic rendition of “I Don’t Want to Set The World On Fire” sounds great, but that’s not why it struck a chord with me (no pun intended). The Ink Spots’ original song was used for the intro cinematic for Fallout 3, the game that revolutionized the franchise as a whole. Using this song again to bring a brand new audience into the wasteland was simply a fantastic choice. It’s a song I, like many others, consider to be synonymous with Fallout. I wonder what other songs are gonna get brought over. I know the show’s not a New Vegas story I know, but I’ll take any excuse to listen to “Big Iron.”
“That is a very small drop in a very, very large bucket of drugs.”
This line comes from Walton Goggins’ character, who insinuates from this line of dialogue that he is a chemically addicted ghoul. This is just great because he’s also a lead character, and getting addicted to chemicals is something you can choose to be in the games. It makes sense for this story and it isn’t thrown in there just for jokes. It can’t be pleasant living as a ghoul, who are humans who have been mutated into zombie-looking creatures by exposure to radiation. There are surely a slew of ghoul-related issues you’d want chems to address or manage in some way, so it might not even be recreational.
The Brotherhood of Steel
The Brotherhood of Steel’s philosophy is based on the concept that superior technology should be controlled and safeguarded at all costs, including the idea of working with other factions and the well-being of the larger wasteland population. This frequently puts them at odds with factions that don’t appreciate the idea of community who then attempt to harness technology for their own ends, which always results in conflict and tension in Fallout.
As a reference to the games though, Aaron Moten’s character, Maximus, says the following line: “Everybody wants to save the world… they just all disagree on how.” The show appears to be staying faithful to Fallout’s main concepts, like a battle of philosophies in a new world where simply surviving is a struggle. I’m looking forward to seeing how this plays out on the show.
The Power Armor
Aligning with the Brotherhood’s ideology as the rightful stewards of technology, they have access to Power Armor. In this universe, Power Armor was designed before the Great War to be powered by fusion cores to allow anyone wearing it to wield bigger weapons and sustain great damage. After the war the Brotherhood became one of many factions to take the armor and repurpose it for their own use, quickly turning into an icon. The Power Armor looks fantastic in the show, and it is a symbol of hierarchy that I can’t wait to see fleshed out within these power dynamics.
The Weapons
Much like the Power Armor, the machine gun and laser pistol look identical to the game, which means they look great. The Syringe Gun is here too and it’s a piece of shit in the trailer just like it is in the game. And since firearms often jam or fail in the real world, it would be a shock if that doesn’t happen at some point in the show, evoking the weapon durability found in Fallout games. It would be annoying to the show’s characters to have their gun stop working, but as somebody who’s had to deal with that in-game countless times, it’d be hilarious to me. There’s also items like Stimpacks placed throughout the trailer so I just wonder what else was brought to life here. Maybe we’ll see plasma weapons or even the Fat Man.
All eight episodes of the Fallout television series are going to be available on Prime Video on April 11. There’s plenty of other references in this trailer that I haven’t even mentioned here, such as the New California Republic flag and its capital Shady Sands which shows a public library sign referring back to the very first Fallout. Check out the trailer here to see what else they’ve packed in store for us.