Articles
How the Fallout Show Captures the RPG Experience with 3 Different Perspectives
Late last week, fans finally got a look at Prime Video’s upcoming Fallout TV show. The short trailer showed off several new characters, including Ella Purnell’s Lucy and Walton Groggins’ The Ghoul. We also got to see Fallout‘s iconic Power Armor in live-action, and it was unsurprisingly stunning. However, one of the more interesting revelations from the Fallout TV show came from an interview after the trailer premiered.
In a roundtable interview at CCXP in Brazil, Fallout‘s showrunner Jonathan Nolan was joined by Purnell and Aaron Moten (who plays Maximus) to discuss how they’re using three different perspectives to make the show feel like an RPG where you’re creating your character and making decisions to influence the story. “One of the defining aspects of Fallout is the various factions,” Nolan said. “We have our Vault Dweller, our Brotherhood of Steel, and we have our Ghoul.”
The Fallout TV Show Uses Three Characters to Replicate the Feel of an RPG
Achievement unlocked: Brasil vault install complete!
Conquista desbloqueada: Instala??o Ref?gio Brasil completa! @PrimeVideoBR pic.twitter.com/lWsnDJ9nKW
— FALLOUT? (@falloutonprime) December 5, 2023
Speaking directly about Lucy, Nolan said, “You have a character who is inherently – or by her own world view – altruistic and good, waiting for a chance to go up and kind of spread the doctrine of American values to the Wasteland above.” Purnell followed that up with, “From what I can tell you, she is a reflection of her Vault’s values which is this sort of all-American, can-do, optimistic spirit. Everyone’s a good person, everyone does good. She works hard, she’s very courageous in her own way. I can’t tell you why she leaves the Vault, but when she does, putting her against the contrast of the Wasteland, she really has to make a choice. Is she gonna adapt or die? Or is she going to go back home? She doesn’t. She makes choices, interacts with other characters, and becomes a different kind of Lucy.”
Nolan also spoke about Maximus saying, “You have a character like Aaron’s character who doesn’t have the luxury of that kind of rigorous moral education. Has just had to try to figure out how to survive in this world and has consequently wound up entering the Brotherhood of Steel because that’s a group that projects strength, and they have a certain set of values, and he’s figuring out how he connects those. And he has to make some pretty difficult decisions about how far his allegiance will go and exactly what that group stands for which is what you’re confronted with as a gamer. The first group that tries to recruit you, you go ‘Wait, do I wanna join these guys, or do I want to get more of a sense of who’s out there?'”
Moten continued the explanation of his character with, “Maximus is a young soldier with the Brotherhood of Steel, the military faction group. I would find him to be extremely idealistic. I think, in the series, we get the opportunity to see that he has a bit of a moral ambiguity in terms of achieving his goals. But I think he’s extremely ambitious and ultimately has a past that is very unique to the Wasteland. And as you discover more about him, I think you hopefully start to understand why he might make certain decisions like he does.”
Finally, Nolan spoke a bit about Groggins’ Ghoul character saying, “And then of course you have Walton. Walton’s character is a Ghoul who we get to see both in the present tense and the past where he’s a very, very different person. So I just thought it was a brilliant way of giving the audience the experience of the scope of the world of Fallout within the structure of linear storytelling.”
As you can, the team behind the Fallout TV show is doing everything they can to bring the feel of a classic Fallout RPG. Translating that to a linear narrative is going to be a tough task, but they’ve taken a few important steps that should leave fans excited for the show’s launch. The Fallout TV show premiers on April 12 on Prime Video.
