Bethesda Confirms Fallout TV Show Is Canon In First Official Preview

In a newly released preview of Amazon Prime’s upcoming Fallout TV show, we learned a lot of new details about the world, characters, and story of the highly anticipated live-action adaptation of Bethesda’s popular post-apocalyptic RPG franchise. For example, the show is considered canon with the games. And Walter Goggins still looks good, even as an undead ghoul.

First announced in July 2020, the Fallout TV series will premiere in April 2024 on Amazon Prime. But we’ve not seen much (officially) of the live-action adaptation since its announcement. In 2022, some set photos leaked and Bethesda released a single screenshot of the series to tease fans. That’s about it. So this big, new preview is our first real look at what to expect next year.

Published on November 28, Vanity Fair’s new look at the upcoming Fallout series confirms a few things. For starters, Bethesda’s Todd Howard revealed that the show is “canon” and set in the same universe as the games.

“We view what’s happening in the show as canon,” Howard told Vanity Fair. “That’s what’s great, when someone else looks at your work and then translates it in some fashion.”

Vanity Fair further elaborated and explained that everything in the new show is officially part of the franchise’s lore and that Bethesda was careful to make sure what happens in the series can coexist with storylines found in the games. Howard also admitted that some of the show’s ideas and additions to the lore were so good that he and others at Bethesda wondered: “Ah, why didn’t we do that?”

So what’s this Fallout show about?

Elsewhere in the lengthy preview, Fallout TV show co-developer and executive producer Jonathan Nolan revealed the basic premise of the series. The series won’t adapt a storyline from the games and is instead telling its own tale that intertwines with the franchise and its expansive universe.

The Fallout show will mainly revolve around three characters, a naive vault dweller named Lucy (played by Yellowjackets’ Ella Purnell), young Brotherhood of Steel soldier Maximus (Aaron Moten), and finally, Walton Goggins as the mysterious and cool bounty hunter known only as The Ghoul. After Lucy leaves her Vault on a mission, she runs into the other characters, who are on missions of their own.

Speaking about ghoulified Goggins, Nolan wanted to make sure that he did, in fact, look like a ghoul—irradiated, long-living creatures found in the Fallout games—but not too gross and zombie-like that it would defeat the purpose of hiring Goggins in the first place.

“I need to be able to see Walton and his performance, he needs to look like a ghoul from the game, and he needs to be kind of hot,” Nolan said. If you don’t mind a missing nose—and knowing the internet, that isn’t a problem for some folks—then Goggins is looking pretty dang good as a centuries-old undead bounty hunter.

The Fallout TV series will premiere in April 2024 on Amazon Prime. Based on the images shared in Vanity Fair’s big preview, it seems that a leaked trailer from earlier this year was indeed real and you can check that out to see the show in action ahead of its release next year.

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