The ‘Fallout’ Show Won’t Give a Canon Ending for ‘New Vegas’

Season two of Fallout is just weeks away, and we’re going to down to good ol’ New Vegas for some of it. For fans of Obsidian’s 2010 game of the same name, the location’s return here is an interesting one, since the show’s set 15 years after it wrapped. Which begs the question: how did that game canonically end, and how will the show address this?

In the game, your character the Courier can help the Caesar’s Legion or New California Republic win control of the Hoover Dam, cede the Dam to Vegas owner Mr. House, or drive all factions out and let the Mojave Wasteland be independent. These endings depend on the player’s reputations with the different factions, and according to Maximus’ actor Aaron Moten, the show is going to avoid dictating which of these definitively happened.

“A conversation [showrunner] Geneva Robertson-Dworet and I have been having, was actually about how history is written in the wasteland by whoever writes it,” he told The Spil. “Different perspectives will have a different perspective on who won and who lost. We see it really early on that [Lucy and Ghoul] find out who believes themselves to be winning, and the Ghoul offering a different perspective.”

Adaptations of choice-based games try to avoid making a definite canon when possible—the upcoming Mass Effect show is also going out of its way to do this—so it’s not too surprising to see Fallout go this route. While game director Josh Sawyer previously gave the show his blessing to do what it pleases, the showrunners seem aware of how beloved that entry is, and have only used promos to suggest that Mr. House still lives, or at the very least, lived a few years post-New Vegas.

We’ll see the full scope of what the show has in store for New Vegas and its various factions when Fallout season two hits Prime Video on December 17.

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