“That clearly may’ve gone the opposite method. However [Howard] was similar to, ‘Hats off, guys,’” Wagner says. “That was what made him actually proud to be working with us,” Robertson-Dworet provides.
“[Todd] and Jonah are type of ‘Sure, and’ type of folks,” Robertson-Dworet continues, recounting that she by no means felt pressured to write down to “their field” or create the present based mostly on particular parameters set by Howard and Nolan. “They hear and so they’re very receptive to issues. They’d their very own concepts, which is nice, however they don’t simply outright nix issues, which is fairly rattling cool.”
The TV collection isn’t an adaptation of one of many video games, however an authentic story set in the identical timeline. That meant the showrunners had the liberty to each craft their very own story inside this universe, whereas additionally referencing issues from the video games when it made sense.
“It’s extra creatively attention-grabbing to have the ability to construct our personal story on the planet that they’ve carved out for us,” Wagner says of their method to adapting Fallout. “That’s traditionally been the trajectory of Fallout. It’s traded fingers many instances, with totally different inventive groups taking it over. It’s stored it recent, stored it related. We selected to only vainly have a look at this as our Fallout.”
However whereas the present provides new components to the lore of Fallout — together with a brand new vault, Vault 33 — one facet of the video games Wagner and Robertson-Dworet labored to protect was the whimsical tonal shifts within the storytelling.
“The Fallout video games are good at conserving it enjoyable,” Wagner says. “I bear in mind like, ‘Hey, issues are harsh up right here, let’s pop all the way down to the vault and do one thing extremely banal and quotidian.’ And people two issues begin to feed into one another. The violence appears extra violent after being on this type of placid underworld. The placid underworld turns into funnier as a result of we simply endured some laborious shit up there and so they’re down right here speaking about potatoes.”
