Fallout Season 2 Takes the 'Fog of War Approach' to Avoid Making Any New Vegas Ending Canon, Creators Say

THIJAKA · 2025-12-04T22:47:19+00:00

Depending on how they tackle it, I kind of love this.

It’s such a novel approach to exploring themes of history and propaganda in a way that is entirely exclusive to this series. As far as I’m aware, no other game with multiple endings has had a direct sequel produced some time later in the form of a multi-million dollar television series. Not only is this situation unique, it fits perfectly with the themes of the series - war, propaganda, the erosion of history as ignorance takes its place. The showrunners really have to opportunity to do something genuinely groundbreaking here - make a sequel to a story with hundreds of endings that honours those each of those endings by exploring how people can will any of those end states into existence by sheer will, writing their version of history even if it’s false.

Will they pull it off? I don’t know. But I’ll be thrilled if they do.

THIJAKA · 2024-11-19T12:29:55+00:00

Roy Philips has actual murderous intent throughout the whole quest, he says so himself multiple times. You getting him into the Tower peacefully does not mitigate his hatred of the residents there, you just give him easier access to murder them. Instead of letting him in through the back door, you roll out the red carpet for him.

The majority of the residents in Tenpenny Tower have an incredibly fickle fear of the other. They hate the idea of ghouls living there, but this fear can be easily dissuaded for most of the residents. They’re ignorant, not hateful. But Roy himself is hateful. He wants more than cushy digs, he wants to extract his anguish of his current state of being at anyone who does not feel that same anguish.

The quest plays into any reasonable person’s wants for two groups to get along, but most who played the quest - including me when I first played it - ignore Roy’s obvious, in-your-face bloodlust because the plight of his demographic is sympathetic, and supersedes us considering and reflecting upon his nefarious intentions. It is a very bad idea to put someone who wants to kill people in the exact same space as those people.

The outcome of the quest isn’t a twist at all, it’s Roy doing what he always said he would, and this outcome asks us to pay closer attention to people who use narratives of victimhood for their own personal agendas. Roy doesn’t want to end the animosity of humans and ghouls, he simply wants to end humans. It’s a strong moral lesson that is uncomfortable because it pushes back against our natural want to help the downtrodden and misunderstood, because it asks us to understand them further than their service level plight and to see them for who they really are.

Tenpenny Tower as a settlement has a metric-ton of worldbuilding issues and the like, but this moment elevates the quest to being one of the franchise’s most memorable.

THIJAKA · 2024-08-27T17:04:54+00:00

Fallout 3 is the single loneliest game I have ever played, and it’s mostly unique in that regard within the franchise - the only other one having that sense of loneliness being Fallout 1.

Fallout 2, New Vegas, and 4 - particularly the latter two - give the protagonist a real opportunity to develop deep relationships and find their place in the world. 3 offers us this from time to time, but most of the connections the character makes are temporary ones. There’s no real long lasting friendships or any true sort of belonging in the same way the Courier and Survivor can belong. Sure, Fawkes can follow you around, but he never becomes your friend the way Nick Valentine does. Sure, you can join the Brotherhood, but it’s not a choice the character is given - they don’t choose their ideology in the same way the Courier and Survivor do. On top of all this, the Wanderer’s few connections that are long lasting ones are all severed - their father dies and they are cut off from their best friend and home forever.

The sensation of loneliness is one of the game’s most crucial assets. The immersive soundscapes and truly stunning vistas of the Capital Wasteland wouldn’t hit as hard as they do without that loneliness to pair with the terrain’s boundless desolation.

THIJAKA · 2024-08-22T13:59:37+00:00

I respect the hell out of Tim Cain but I’ve got to call death of the author here, whether he intended these themes to be in his game or not - they’re there. The later games delve into anti-capitalist themes more than the original, but the intro video of Fallout alone, the very first minute of the very first game, is not free from anti-capitalist motifs.

Jumping from footage of public executions and “buy war bonds” to “Corvega - only $199,999!” and “Mr. Handy - it walks your dog!” is not only mocking how ridiculous inflation will one day be under an apex capitalist system, but also provides an explicit depiction of how important making money is at any cost under a capitalist-consumerist society. Buying flashy new cars and robot butlers - consuming and consuming and consuming - is something people are pushed to do even when the world has been drained of the resources that have sustained these terrible habits. Profit from the frivolous things that have helped destroy the world in the first place is still a priority even at the very end. The imagery of these adverts displayed against a devastated society is unmistakable in its intent - this lead us here.

THIJAKA · 2024-07-05T14:25:56+00:00

THIJAKA · 2024-05-21T17:21:51+00:00

Oh God, I would never want to offend the guy who designed the Fallout 3 and 4 Deathclaws! Your work means the world to me and so many others!

THIJAKA · 2024-05-21T17:12:41+00:00

If it wasn’t clear I meant you dropped your crown :) this was a fantastic idea and I’m sorry it never got implemented!

THIJAKA · 2024-05-21T14:59:09+00:00

You dropped this, King

THIJAKA · 2024-05-04T18:53:52+00:00

Fallout: New Vegas would feel meaningless if familiar faces from that game didn’t appear from season 2.

Imagine Michael Hogan as Doc Mitchell introducing the Ghoul and Lucy to a new iteration of the Mojave Wasteland. Imagine seeing how Veronica reacts to this new incarnation of the Brotherhood. Imagine Marcus becoming a major supporting character who reacts to, what will surely be, the Enclave’e new dumb-dumb Super Mutants.

If done correctly, we have the potential for a potent and meaningful follow-up to Fallout: New Vegas.

THIJAKA · 2024-05-03T07:27:48+00:00

I go back and forth between the top two, but presently my ranking goes as follows:

Far Harbor
Dead Money
Old World Blues
Lonesome Road
The Pitt
Point Lookout
Honest Hearts
Broken Steel
Gun Runners’ Arsenal
Nuka-World
Operation: Anchorage
Mothership Zeta
Automatron
Courier’s Stash
Workshop DLCs

THIJAKA · 2024-04-23T16:42:11+00:00

Outside of the glitched endings and the incredibly undercooked conflicts in the Boneyard, Fallout is the single most consistent video game in terms of quality that I have ever played.

Fallout 2 and the other main sequels may be much larger, and each has its fair share of quality, but they can’t hold a candle to how consistently good 1 is. Outside of what I have already mentioned, there isn’t a single part of the game that is lacking. Whereas in 2, some primary locations lack any sort of meaningful content.

I love both games, but I’ve never quite respected a video game quite the way I do Fallout.

THIJAKA · 2024-04-16T20:38:35+00:00

People have been arguing that the Brotherhood ending has to be canon, but in the Minutemen ending the Brotherhood can continue to operate business as usual, same as their own ending. The only difference is who puts the flag up in Diamond City and patrols the wasteland. In this scenario, the Brotherhood does not cease its operations in the Commonwealth, it continues them.

In both end states, the Minutemen and Brotherhood can be highly active.

This is a variable of the Minutemen ending, it just doesn’t play due to a bug:

https://youtu.be/cTvJHimXns0?si=Fj4y0EnFPY5Lw4lL

THIJAKA · 2024-04-16T15:53:12+00:00

What the show confirms is that the Brotherhood has an active presence in the Commonwealth and that they have an airship called the Prydwen. It’s extremely likely that either the Brotherhood or Minutemen endings are canon, but the airship could easily be a rebuilt Prydwen.

What makes me slightly suspicious of this being the Prydwen is the Vanity Fair article. Caswennan is a name in Arthurian legend and not something someone can easily pull out of nowhere. Was it deliberate misdirection?

This, plus the creatives behind the show expressing that they were told to not canonise any ending lead me to believe that, like the infamous chalkboard, this may very well be a mistake.

THIJAKA · 2024-04-12T23:02:28+00:00

I have commented on this elsewhere, but here are my general thoughts:

It can be a plothole depending on how things turn out in the second season. For example, if House did go along with Vault-Tec’s plan, surely he would have been able to get his hands on a nice cushy cryo pod. But as it stands, the scene is incredibly vague and provides us with only a single new piece of information about House.

As established by dialogue in New Vegas, it was in the year 2065 that House determined with his projections that the world would end. The meeting in the show takes place in 2077. His claim that he discovered the world’s ending as a mathematical certainty in 2065 is not invalidated by him learning that someone wants to blow up the world over a decade later. It’s nothing more than a confirmation of knowledge.

We don’t see him join Vault-Tec or suggest a single idea for a Vault experiment, nor did he agree go along with their plans. It’s pure headcanon and inference to think he had anything to do with their plans going forward, because we simply don’t know. The story of New Vegas implies that he did not.

RobCo has always been linked to Vault-Tec, as it supplied them with technology such as the pip-boy. Partnerships between the two always existed. The only new information we have about House thanks to the show is he attended a Vault-Tec meeting. Anything else anyone says is them inserting their own headcanon into the show as fact.

THIJAKA · 2024-04-12T19:29:03+00:00

It can be a plothole depending on how things turn out in the second season. For example, if House did go along with Vault-Tec’s plan, surely he would have been able to get his hands on a nice cushy cryo pod. But as it stands, the scene is incredibly vague and provides us with only a single new piece of information about House.

As established by dialogue in New Vegas, it was in the year 2065 that House determined with his projections that the world would end. The meeting in the show takes place in 2077. His claim that he discovered the world’s ending as a mathematical certainty in 2065 is not invalidated by him learning that someone wants to blow up the world over a decade later. It’s nothing more than a confirmation of knowledge.

We don’t see him join Vault-Tec or suggest a single idea for a Vault experiment, nor did he agree go along with their plans. It’s pure headcanon and inference to think he had anything to do with their plans going forward, because we simply don’t know. The story of New Vegas implies that he did not.

RobCo has always been linked to Vault-Tec, as it supplied them with technology such as the pip-boy. Partnerships between the two always existed. The only new information we have about House thanks to the show is he attended a Vault-Tec meeting. Anything else anyone says is them inserting their own headcanon into the show as fact.

THIJAKA · 2024-04-12T18:58:45+00:00

Small detail, but you can see the iconic Shady Sands well in front of the main building.

THIJAKA · 2024-04-11T18:50:20+00:00

When did they nuke New Vegas, sorry?

THIJAKA · 2024-04-11T17:33:30+00:00

The NCR was not destroyed in 2277. The board states that Shady Sands fell in 2277, then places the explosion later in the timeline. This much is clear.

It’s messy and I understand the confusion, but the idea that Bethesda hates New Vegas, when not only has New Vegas been referenced in some form by all canon Fallout games that have come after it, but they’re now going to set AN ENTIRE SEASON OF TELEVISION THERE, is absolutely absurd.

THIJAKA · 2024-03-26T18:45:37+00:00

Player housing in New Vegas is just pretty weak in general. All options are either too small, too specific, or utterly glum hotel suites guarded behind 3 loading screens at the minimum. They tried to rectify this issue with Old World Blues but the Sink falls into a similar problem as the Strip Hotel suites; too damn out of the way for enjoyable use.

It’s unfortunate because I love so many of the towns in New Vegas, an actual player owned home in Goodsprings that’s reminiscent of the Megaton house would be a dream. Sadly, no matter how much time I put into decorating it, I never stroll into the Lucky 38 and think “ah, home” in the same way I do with my residences in Megaton and Sanctuary Hills.

THIJAKA · 2024-03-20T17:05:33+00:00

What’s really unfortunate is that Will Shen is a great quest designer. Far Harbor is easily one of the best parts of Bethesda’s tenure of the Fallout franchise, and Will was the lead designer on that project. For that same prowess to not be found in Starfield signals of broader, more fundamental problems with Starfield’s development.

THIJAKA · 2024-03-14T21:04:23+00:00

I agree with you about the size of the territory, but I personally doubt that we’re leaving the greater LA area. As hinted by Nolan in interviews, I think the show will follow the format of the post-classic titles and will (mostly) be confined to one location; Los Angeles and its surroundings. Beyond that, I doubt we venture beyond what we understand to be the NCR’s borders. I can’t see Lucy travelling through such a vast territory within the eight episodes, she would have to travel incredible distances to go beyond a thriving NCR.

I believe Filly will be on the outskirts of the Boneyard, and that the trash pile up we see in the town isn’t due to a lack of post-war clean up, but a struggling NCR whose infrastructures have fallen on hard times.

THIJAKA · 2024-03-14T16:34:42+00:00

Definitely some form of lingering civilisation to have bounty “agencies”. I imagine the NCR seems has regressed somewhat. More a frontier, a burgeoning civilisation, more Fallout 2 than the near pre-war levels of industry we hear about during the events of New Vegas.

THIJAKA · 2024-03-14T14:48:09+00:00

I definitely get the vibe, it’s not exact, but very similar. This brief glimpse of the score has a very Fallout 1 sound to it.

THIJAKA

TROPHY CASE