With anticipation for Fallout Season 2, fans are wondering if Bethesda will capitalize on the smash hit Amazon show in a more significant way this time around.
Fallout Season 1 hit Prime Video in April 2024 and was an instant breakout hit. While the show’s popularity sparked a flood of new players across all Fallout games, Bethesda — and by extension parent company Microsoft — failed to make the most of it with, for example, the release of a new Fallout game.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer ended up insisting that everyone involved benefited from the show’s success, and that not having a new game lined up for the launch “gave us some creative liberty that [we] wouldn't have had if we tried to coordinate production of two very different creative processes to land at the same time.”
That mention of “creative liberty” is a reference to the Fallout TV show’s canon status within the Fallout timeline, and the fact it takes place after all the existing Fallout games. While this has meant Fallout lore fans have analyzed the TV show to within an inch of its life, its creators were able to move on from what’s gone before and tell a brand new story. If a new post-Fallout 4 video game had come out at the same time, Bethesda and the TV showrunners would have faced a tricky job ensuring all their Fallout timeline ducks were in a row.
But will Microsoft and Bethesda fail to capitalize on Season 2 of the Fallout show? When it comes to Fallout 76, at least, it sounds like tie-in content is indeed planned.
Speaking to Variety, Bethesda Game Studios’ Fallout 76 creative director Jon Rush said the development team is “always focused on the game,” but confirmed the two teams (TV show and video games) do talk to each other about “lining things up with the seasonal releases of the show.”
“I think a distinct trait of the Fallout 76 game is that we’re the furthest back in time,” he said. “And it’s kind of funny, because the show’s the furthest into the future. So there’s a lot of room where we don’t necessarily need to overlap. There are some things that we could overlap the stories, that could exist, but we largely try to keep those pretty simple.
“So the show is very effective storytelling, great storytelling, very Fallout, being made by folks that are big fans of the game and the series, and so are we. The two go together really well. So folks see the show and want more of that same kind of story, and they’re going to come into 76, they’re going to come into Fallout 4, or come into Fallout 3.
“Lining things up with the seasonal releases of the show, it’s stuff that we talk about all the time, and we do have plans for things here and there. I’m not going to go into detail on any of those now, but the two teams do talk to one another.”
So, we don’t know what exactly Bethesda is planning for the launch of Fallout Season 2, but we do know something is in the works for Fallout 76. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. For one, we don’t have a Fallout Season 2 release date yet. Could Bethesda have a new Fallout video game in the works to go alongside the show? There is about as much anticipation for a new Fallout game as there is for Fallout Season 2 — and the speculation to go along with it as remaster and remake rumors swirl.
But perhaps we shouldn’t hold our breath. In June last year, Bethesda development chief Todd Howard said he wasn't interested in rushing the next Fallout game out the door.
"For other Fallout games in the future, you know, obviously I can’t talk about those right now, but I would say, sort of rushing through them, or we kind of need to get stuff out that is different than the work we’re doing in 76… we don’t feel like we need to rush any of that," he said. "The Fallout TV show fills a certain niche in terms of the franchise and storytelling."
Of course, a brand new Fallout game is coming down the pipe, with Howard confirming Fallout 5 is in the long-term plan, potentially after The Elder Scrolls 6 comes out. As for Fallout Season 2, it's off to New Vegas, the setting of Obsidian's much-loved Fallout: New Vegas.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
