Amazon’s Fallout TV show is canon, so the question of which Fallout: New Vegas ending it will rubber stamp as official has been a burning question within the community ever since it was confirmed that Season 2 would take place in what remains of the city. But recent comments from one of the actors on the show suggest Season 2 will dodge the question entirely.
Warning! Spoilers for Fallout Season 1 and Fallout New Vegas follow.
The Fallout TV show is set after all the Fallout games and is considered canon, so when it was confirmed that Mr. House would be in Season 2, it sparked all sorts of fan theories about how he would make his live-action appearance, and what it would mean for Obsidian’s much-loved New Vegas itself.
Robert House appears in New Vegas as Mr. House. He rules the Strip as a brain plugged into a supercomputer that has extended his existence from the pre-war era hundreds of years into the post-war era. Robert House makes a cameo appearance in Season 1 during a pre-war scene in which the then RobCo Industries boss plots with Vault-Tec management and the heads of other companies to not only survive the inevitable nuclear apocalypse, but maybe even trigger it.
Season 1 ends with a Power Armor-clad Overseer Hank stomping towards New Vegas, with The Ghoul and Lucy MacLean in hot pursuit. Much of Season 2 — based on trailers released so far — will be set in New Vegas and deal with the coming together of the main characters there.
A quick reminder of where we’re at in the Fallout timeline: the Fallout TV show is set in 2296, nine years after the events of Fallout 4 and 15 years after the events of Fallout: New Vegas. We’ve already seen a debate about which Fallout 4 ending should be considered canon, if any. And now we know Mr. House is in Season 2, does that suggest a canon ending is being used?
Depending on the choices the player, aka The Courier, makes throughout the course of the game, New Vegas can end with victory for the player during the Battle of Hoover Dam, which drives out all factions including Mr. House himself, a victory for Mr. House in which he remains in control of New Vegas and takes over Hoover Dam, a victory for Caesar's Legion, or a victory for the New California Republic.
There are variations within these endings, but given Mr. House is in Season 2 in a post-war setting, as in alive (sort of) when the main characters turn up at New Vegas, then it’s likely he survived the events of New Vegas the video game.
But does Season 2 make a decision on who won Fallout New Vegas? In a new interview with The Spill, Aaron Moten, who plays Maximus, a Brotherhood of Steel squire, suggests not — and it sounds like this was a talking point among the cast and showrunners.
“Actually, you know what's really interesting is our storyline, where we are in time, it's a number of years after the events of New Vegas,” Moten began when asked if Fallout fans will be surprised by the New Vegas they see in Season 2.
“An interesting thing, a conversation Geneva [Robertson-Dworet, co-showrunner] and I have been having, was actually about how history is written in the wasteland by whoever writes it. And different perspectives will have a different perspective on who won and who lost. It's a really beautiful thing. We see it really early on that you guys [Ella Purnell’s Lucy and Walton Goggins’ The Ghoul] find out who believes themselves to be winning, and The Ghoul offering a different perspective.”
So, based on these comments, it sounds like Season 2 will largely dodge the thorny issue of New Vegas canon and include pretty much every faction from the game to some degree. Indeed, trailers have shown Mr. House in supercomputer form and Caesar’s Legion, although it's unclear in what state they're in. So perhaps we’re in for a bit of a New Vegas mashup where everyone thinks they won the Battle of Hoover Dam.
Moten's comments echo those of co-showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet last year: “All we really want the audience to know is that things have happened, so that there isn't an expectation that we pick the show up in season two, following one of the myriad canon endings that depend on your choices when you play [Fallout: New Vegas],” Wagner said.
“With that post-credits stuff, we really wanted to imply, guys, the world has progressed, and the idea that the wasteland stays as it is decade-to-decade is preposterous to us. It’s just a place [of] constant tragedy, events, horrors — there's a constant churn of trauma. We're definitely implying more has occurred.”
It won’t be long until we find out. Fallout Season 2 kicks off December 17.
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Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
