Fallout TV series’ latest trailer reveals a familiar Bethesda post-apocalypse

Four years after a live-action Fallout TV adaptation was officially announced, the show is almost upon us. And ahead of its Amazon Video debut on 12th April – and following years of official images, unofficial behind-the-scenes shots, and even a sizeable teaser – we’ve got our best look yet at the adaptation, courtesy of a new three-minute series trailer.

Going by the trailer below, the adaptation makes a positive first impression, convicingly capturing the Fallout games’ ever-shifting tone – blending gee-whizz ’50s Americana with grubby post-apocalyptic mayhem as Ella Purnell’s Vault Dweller protagonist Jean leaves her lifelong underground home to venture out into the Los Angeles Wasteland.

Speaking during a press panel ahead of today’s trailer reveal, co-showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet explained that while the adaptation is set in the world of Fallout, it’s also a “new story that comes after the events we’ve seen” in the games. “The show is built on 25 years of creativity and thinking and building,” co-showrunner Graham Wagner added, “and we sort of thought the best thing to do is to continue that versus retread it. Because that’s sort of what has worked with Fallout over the years. It’s traded hands… it’s a living thing… and we felt like we ought to take a swing at trying to build a new piece on top of all of that.”

While its story might be unfamiliar, the Fallout vibe is not, and the TV show team was keen to praise the series’ authenticity. “The tone was a big thing,” executive producer and Episodes 1-3 director Jonathan Nolan explained. “I think the tone was maybe the most challenging and the most intimidating thing for me… And the power Armour in particular was one of those things you go, ‘Oh, how on earth are we going to do that?’ But we got there.” Graham joked: “And when they got the Brylcreem hair… I was like, nailed it.”

“The trick with Fallout,” Bethesda’s Todd Howard – who serves as executive producer on Amazon’s series – continued, “is it has so many different tones. It goes between the serious, the dramatic, and action. And some humour, and nostalgic music, and dramatic music, and I think… what the show does really well is it weaves those different things together in a very unique blend that only Fallout can bring and they’ve done an awesome job.”

As to what the show has taken from Fallout beyond its familiar iconography, Robertson-Dworet touched on the social commentary “inherent to the idea” of Vaults. “[There are] these incredibly prescient themes, factionalism being maybe the most obvious when you play the game”.

“The world seems to be ever more frightening and dour [right now],” Nolan added, “And so an opportunity for us to work on a show that gets to look that in the eye, when we get to talk about the end of the world, but to do it with a sense of humour [and] a thread of optimism woven in, I think for us it’s a bit of expiation to be able to work on this every day.”

Ultimately, though, Nolan says the goal isn’t to create a fan-pleaser but a series that can stand on its own terms. “I don’t think you really can set out to please the fans of anything or please anyone other than yourself,” he explained. “I think you have to come into this trying to make the show that you want to make and trusting that, as fans of the game, we would find the pieces that were essential to us and the games to try to do the best version of those that we can. I think it’s kind of a fool’s errand to try to figure out how to make people happy. And that way you’re gonna make yourself happy and I’ve made myself very happy with the show.”

And Howard agrees. “It’s been a great, great collaboration,” he added, “and everybody on the stage and what they’ve done, for someone like me and the team here at Bethesda, it’s just a real blessing to see what they’ve done with it.”

Whether fans will be equally as enthusiastic about Amazon’s adaptation – and whether it’ll garner the critical acclaim of HBO’s The Last of Us or the critical shrug of Paramount’s Halo – remains to be seen. But today’s trailer makes a promising first impression, and with that 12th April release looming, there isn’t long until the show – which stars the likes of Ella Purnell, Aaron Clifton Moten, Walton Goggins, and Kyle MacLachlan – will be upon us.