After finishing the first season of Amazon’s new series, I found myself wanting more of Fallout. This was a near-perfect adaptation, and I wanted to see more, especially after the New Vegas strip was teased in the final shot of the finale.
I’ve been looking at my Steam library all day, wondering what games to play. You here probably do too. Let’s see if we can solve it together.
Fallout 3 came out during my freshman year of college and swept through my dorm like a nuclear explosion. It was a phenomenon that took over my life and caused at least two people on my floor to drop out of their first semester. Against all odds, I survived. Fallout 3 was his second revisited game in the series after New Vegas, which came out two years later, and it remains one of my top ten favorite games of all time. I played it to death and can always play it again.
![Walton Goggins from the Fallout TV show plays the ghoul.](https://static1.thegamerimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fallout-tv-show-the-ghoul-walton-goggins.jpg)
‘Fallout’ season finale surprise creates interesting anticipation for season 2
The end of Fallout’s first season is a nice, feel-good ending for the game, but what does it mean for the story of Season 2?
Fallout 4 didn’t feel the same to me when it released in 2015. I also know I’m not alone in that. I’ve only played it once and never touched the expansion. It’s probably worth revisiting in hindsight, but I wasn’t interested in the base-building story, and the dialogue trees were a bit disappointing after New Vegas had put so much effort into elevating the role-playing aspects of this RPG. I was disappointed in how simplified it was.
Fallout 76 was an even bigger disappointment for me, and the one-two punch of Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 explains why I haven’t thought much about the series in recent years. I love live service games like Destiny 2, and the idea of playing Fallout with friends sounded great, but the co-op experience leaves a lot to be desired, and the empty world is a little different from Fallout. Much of what I like about it is missing. I know it’s changed a lot over the years, including the introduction of NPCs, so it might be worth giving it another try.
Modiphius’ new tabletop skirmish game, Fallout: Factions, is scheduled for release later this year. The starter set is called Battle For Nuka-World and features his three raider factions from the DLC of the same name. Check out our interview with Game Workshop veteran designer James Hewitt.
And then there’s the original Fallout, which happens to have the biggest connection to the TV show. I’ve dabbled with OG Fallout several times over the years, but I never understood its archaic controls and menus. This and Fallout 2 may be a little too old for my tastes, but I’ll admit that there’s a certain appeal to starting at the beginning and working your way through the entire series. It will probably be completed in time for season 2.
I know I’m not going to start with Brotherhood of Steel or Tactics. I’m craving Fallout right now, not some wacky spin-off, although it might be interesting to explore from a complementarian perspective. By excluding these from the list, you can narrow your focus a little, but not by much.
New Vegas is my favorite, but you’ll probably enjoy it even more if you play it right before Season 2 comes out. The next season is set to take place, at least in part, in New Vegas some 15 years after the events of the game, and it would be great to revisit the strip just before watching the TV show version, hopefully next year.
If you haven’t played Fallout 3 many times, that’s definitely the best place to start. Despite the inevitable aging process, Nexus Mods has been given a well-received HD overhaul that brings a nice refresh to the game. If you’re new to Fallout, we recommend starting here.
For me, it comes down to either Fallout 4 or Fallout 76, so the real question is whether I can convince my friends to join me on my Fallout 76 journey. It never really clicked with us before, but now it might have enough appeal to draw us in. However, if I’m alone, it’s finally time to give Fallout 4 another go. Perhaps it’s finally time to find out what’s going on in the Pacific Northwest. Just a guess, but I think the crab is probably big.