I was 13 when a friend of mine gave me a single copied CD-rom that said “Fallout”. My PC was terrible, it could barely run the game, but god damn if I wasn’t completely engrossed in that isometric RPG set in a post-apocalyptic, fifties-style desert world. It was hilarious, dramatic, dark – and my first entry into the so-called CRPG genre. And even if, a year later, Baldur’s Gate was an objectively better game – this one felt so much more original. Even if I had never heard of the atomic bomb or the cold war – this game sparked my imagination.

To be completely honest, Fallout has fallen of my radar the last ten or so years. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were amazing, but Fallout 4 was a complete dud to me. The wonderful roleplaying world felt reduced to a poorly written stage to shoot stuff in. And yes, of course, the next one could be better – but it’s been ten years without a Fallout in sight…

Then someone decided to make a Fallout TV show!

And it’s pretty neat!

Okay, honestly? Storywise, it’s not great. Characters appear to have clear goals, but some of them get insanely side-tracked just for the sake of filling more episodes, but boy, those episodes are awesome. In Fallout, the devil’s in the detail: What weird stuff do our quirky heroes stumble upon on their trip through the wastelands? And how do they react to it?

If anything, you should watch this series for its tone. One second, our heroine, who spent her entire life in a vault underground and is about to be wed to an unknown outsider, is yapping about how happy she is about finally moving beyond “cousin stuff”, the next moment someone pulls a machete and body parts are flying left and right. I’m at awe at how they pulled this show off, tonally, and I’m often laughing out loud. Fallout is dark, cynical in its worldbuilding, but our characters are funny and kind of stupid – but with a lot of pathos. They, along with what is honestly perfect costume design, sell this unsellable world.

So dear Todd Howard, please use this show as a base for the next Fallout game. These games can be good again!