Fallout: Bethesda's Todd Howard Confirms Show's Place in the Timeline, Teases Fallout 5

Amazon's Fallout TV show is finally dropping on Prime Video this week. In fact, it was just announced that the streaming site would be releasing all eight episodes early. The show is already getting praise from critics, and it is currently up on Rotten Tomatoes with a 92% critics score. ComicBook.com's Tanner Dedmon gave the new series a 4.5 out of 5, saying it has "raised the bar for what a video game adaptation can look like." Previously, the show's showrunners revealed they perceive the show a "Fallout 5," so we asked Bethesda's Todd Howard what that means for the future of the games. 

"Oh no, the show is not Fallout 5," Howard confirmed to ComicBook.com at the show's Los Angeles premiere. "But we approached it in the way we do a game. What would another next story be? We move the timeline forward and Fallout forward. We pick a location that's unique. We have all new characters, so we approached it the same way, but clearly, no, it's not Fallout 5. There will eventually be," he teased of the video game franchise's future. 

In addition to leading the development of the Fallout games for Bethesda, Howard is also an executive producer on the new show. Early reviews for Fallout suggest the series will appease both fans of the games and newcomers, so we also asked Howard how they found that balance. 

"I think we don't find that balance for you," Howard revealed. "We just say like we do every game. We assume you've never played a game. Even when we do Fallout 4, we've assumed you haven't played. So this was the same thing. We assume you've never played, you don't know Fallout, and we just get right to it. The world itself is so cool. We just dive in. And I would say for fans, we're fans, right? So for ourselves, making it really, really authentic to that universe. As long as we do that and we do a good enough job of that, I think fans will really dig up." 

What Is Fallout About?

While the show's main characters – Lucy (Purnell), Maximus (Moten), and Cooper Howard (Goggins) – are entirely new, they fit certain archetypes established in the games. Lucy is a Vault Dweller, and the start of the series centers around her leaving her Vault for the very first time and heading to Los Angeles. Maximus is a squire of the Brotherhood of Steel, while Cooper is a bounty-hunting Ghoul. All three get a significant amount of screen time in today's trailer, and it should give fans a better idea of the overall narrative. 

"It's an uncertain time in television. So the art form of season finales has become: provide enough closure, but leave the door open for more," writer Graham Wagner told Total Film. "But we feel we've barely scratched the surface of the Fallout universe. We literally have documents and documents of stuff that we're, in success, eager to dig into. Our fingers are crossed that we're going to get the opportunity to do all that stuff." 

Fallout premieres on Prime Video tonight at 6 PM PT.