We’re living in a golden age of TV shows based on video games.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a visual treat, while Peacock’s Twisted Metal is a lot of fun. There’s also Arcane, which recently wrapped up its acclaimed two-season run; the delightful Pokémon Concierge; and the shockingly good Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff series Knuckles. The two most prominent examples of the uptick in quality among TV show/video game adaptations, however, are The Last of Us and Fallout. They’re both wildly popular, critically admired, and were collectively nominated for (and won) a bunch of Emmys.
We’re aware of when The Last of Us is returning to HBO — but what about Prime Video’s Fallout? Here’s everything we know about season 2.
Plot
Let’s begin with a Fallout refresher. The series is set roughly 200 years following a nuclear attack, where “the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind — and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird and highly violent universe waiting for them,” according to the official logline.
The season 1 finale — in which Lucy learns the truth about her father, and teams up with The Ghoul to follow him — teases a new location for the show: Las Vegas (or “New Vegas”), one of the only major cities in North America, if not the only, that emerged from the nuclear apocalypse relatively unscathed.
“The idea that more stuff has happened, and that we’re not leaving worlds as we left them, was sort of the philosophy of approaching the first season being set in Los Angeles,” co-creator Graham Wagner told GQ about the change of setting (without straight-up confirming it). “We do hope to continue that, and create story on top of story… That’s been the entire exercise from the jump, right? 25 years of games, how do you do something on top of it, like a teetering Jenga tower. But that was always the goal. So we are hoping to do that again in another area that is strongly implied by the finale of the first season.”
Director and producer Jonathan Nolan described season 2 as “playing in the same space [as season 1], but not necessarily with the same elements.” In response, co-creator Geneva Robertson-Dworet said:
“I think what Jonah was maybe alluding to is there are 25 years of Fallout games. There were so many things that we were not able to put in the show that we really desperately wanted that are either brilliant ideas for characters, creatures, set pieces. We’re always going to be bringing in new things from the Fallout mythology as we move forward with the show.”
It’s obvious that they don’t want to give away too much about season 2, but Walton Goggins (The Ghoul) thinks the new episodes “blows [season 1] out of the water,” while Ella Purnell (Lucy) is tired of her “poop finger.”
Speaking of Ella and “The Ghoul Daddy”…
Cast
Fallout season 2 will feature many returning faces from the first season, including Ella Purnell as Lucy, Aaron Moten as Maximus, Moisés Arias as Lucy’s brother Norm, Kyle MacLachlan as Lucy’s father Hank, Leslie Uggams as Betty, Zach Cherry as Woody, Annabel O’Hagan as Stephanie, Dave Register as Chet, and, of course, Walton Goggins as The Ghoul.
A new addition to the Fallout cast is Home Alone legend Macaulay Culkin as “a crazy genius-type character.” There’s been talk of Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul reuniting with Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan, as well.
Release Date
Filming for Fallout season 2 (which was officially renewed two weeks after season 1 premiered) was reportedly delayed due to the California wildfires, so don’t new episodes until 2026.
Trailer
Sadly, there’s no trailer for season 2 yet. But there is something even better: a nearly 12-minute video of the best of The Ghoul.