Another thing that makes the “Fallout” games so great is how much they rely on visual storytelling. Much of the world-building happens through diary entries you find out in the wasteland and just on the little sights you discover as to what life was like right before the bombs dropped.
Take the vaults that serve as the opening setting for every one of the games — and the show, too. Each vault is meant to house the remnants of humanity and keep them safe after armageddon, but they are actually just a giant lab meant to do experiments on its inhabitants. You discover this mostly by looking at the decorations of the vaults, like one containing several musical instruments (the vault housed some of the world’s greatest musical minds), as well as a white noise broadcast coming out of the vault’s loudspeakers that eventually scrambled its population’s minds.
But amidst the horror, there is also plenty of laughter. Sticking to the visual storytelling, you find plenty of humorous remains scattered through the wasteland, including skeletons seated on toilets and other embarrassing positions (a skeleton in a bath surrounded by mannequins, a drug deal gone wrong).
“It’s a dark world in many ways,” Jonathan Nolan said. “But the games were fun to play, fun to explore, and I think that was a mandate for us: to make sure that it was enjoyable to spend time in this universe.”
“Fallout” begins streaming on Prime Video on April 12, 2024.