From controller to silver screen: Amazon Prime’s “Fallout” and the rise of television gaming adaptations

By Ben Konuch

Imagine this: it’s 2007, and you’ve just heard that your favorite video game is getting a movie adaptation coming to theaters soon! If you’re imagining accurately, your reaction might be a groan of frustration or a panicked clutching of your non-existent pearls. After all, why should you be excited for another movie studio to fundamentally misunderstand a video game you love?

By 2007, Hollywood had shouted loud and clear that it was incapable of capturing the fun of video games and channeling the impactful stories that they had to offer. There seemed to be two prevailing camps of video game movies: the ones that fans still shudder at the thought of and the ones that weren’t awful but weren’t that good, either. 

Some of the most egregious offenders included the 1992 “Super Mario Bros.”, any of Uwe Boll’s potential money-laundering scheme films such as “Alone in the Dark” or “Postal” and the box-office bomb that was 2005’s “Doom”. Examples of the not-quite-dumpster-fire variety included the Angelina Jolie “Tomb Raider” films, the 1995 “Mortal Kombat,” 2006’s “Silent Hill,” and for some reason that I cannot comprehend, six different Paul W.S. Anderson “Resident Evil” films.

As Hollywood entered the 2010s, the state of video game adaptations got a little better. Quite a few successful video game films have come and gone, such as “Sonic the Hedgehog” or “Detective Pikachu,” as well as a few more duds such as box-office nightmare “Warcraft” in 2016. While there is some hope peaking through, most video game enthusiasts still have a largely negative response to film adaptations.

Part of the difficulty in bringing a video game to film is the sheer impossibility of condensing games with upwards of a hundred hours of story and content into just one film. Oftentimes Hollywood has compensated for this difficulty by making significant departures from the original story just to make a video game fit into a film’s runtime, much to the chagrin of fans and viewers alike.

But somewhere along the way, Netflix changed everything. In 2017 and 2021, Netflix showed that there was another medium. The silver screen was ripe for exploration, and television was about to level up.

In 2017, Netflix shocked the gaming world with its release of the animated action-horror series “Castlevania” which would air for four seasons before it wrapped its story up and set up a sequel series, “Castlevania: Nocturne.” Exploring the lore of the iconic 80’s and 90’s platformer and action game of the same name, “Castlevania” wove a blood-soaked tale of vampires and monster hunters in a magic-infused Europe. Yet in all of its liberties taken from the source material and small tweaks added, “Castlevania” won the love of its audience due to an unflinching and unapologetic embracing of its source material. 

The “Castlevania” series didn’t try to retell the beloved story, but instead embraced what made the games so captivating and found the best way to bring it to life across multiple episodes. This episodic formula increased the runtime, which allowed the writers to properly capture the story without making cuts. While Japan had aired several anime adaptations of video games prior, “Castlevania” brought episodic adaptations of video games to the West. However, despite the success of “Castlevania,” many skeptical gamers wondered if it would simply be television’s one-hit-wonder.

In 2021, Netflix released “Arcane,” an animated drama set in the world of popular MMO “League of Legends,” and any doubts about television housing the stories of gaming melted away. In nine short episodes, “Arcane” wove an intriguing and emotional tale that served as a prequel to the major gaming franchise, and did so in a way that captivated both veteran League players and newcomers to “League of Legends” alike. With the release of “Arcane,” the world of film seemed to sense a change, and the world of gaming felt it too.

In the last five years, we’ve seen more television adaptations of video games succeed than in the last two decades of video game films. “The Last of Us” wowed longtime fans with how its intricate emotional stakes, production design and mature storytelling translated into a live-action medium. “Twisted Metal” revitalized a long-dead gaming classic with a surprisingly earnest blending of violent action and dark comedy. Most recently, “Fallout” brought one of the biggest names in video game storytelling and worldbuilding into a live-action series, and despite many fans’ fears and apprehension, did so to roaring success.

Amazon Prime’s “Fallout” series destroyed any opposition when it released mid-April, amassing over 7 million streams in its first three weeks and becoming the most-watched show across any streaming platform in that month. “Fallout” became the most successful launch of any Amazon Prime show according to the Nielson streaming charts. “Fallout” also boasted an impressive 93% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes with a staggeringly high audience score of 90%. 

While the series was successful critically, “Fallout” also became a first for gaming adaptations. Rather than directly adapting the story of one of the beloved post-nuclear roleplaying games by Bethesda Studios, “Fallout” was the first live-action video game movie or series that created a new story set in the same world as its source material. Its showrunner Jonathan Nolan aimed to work directly with the director and executive producer of the “Fallout” franchise, Todd Howard, to ensure that the “Fallout” series stayed true to its source material while it explored a corner of its canonical lore never before seen.

While television adaptations haven’t always been perfected, with notable misfires like Paramount’s “Halo” demonstrating that Hollywood studios still struggle to get video games right, the medium of television has shown a fascinating and hopeful trend for video game adaptations. Whether animation or live-action, the silver screen has proven how episodic storytelling can enable studios to invest in the depth and nuance of writing that does justice to some of gaming’s greatest tales. 

Imagine this: it’s 2024, and you’ve just heard that your favorite video game is getting a television adaptation coming to a streaming service soon! If you’re imagining accurately, you might finally breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe the world of film is finally learning how to do justice to gaming’s greatest triumphs. Maybe the industry is growing, slowly but surely, and has discovered new mediums to respectfully translate the controller into the remote. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll finally get some good “Resident Evil” stories on film now.

“Fallout” is now streaming on Amazon Prime, and “Castlevania” and “Arcane” are streaming on Netflix. Watch all episodes of “The Last of Us” on HBO Max and “Halo” on Paramount+

If you’re interested in reading more about “Arcane” or “The Last of Us”, check out our full reviews on them.

Ben Konuch is a senior Strategic Communication student and one of the A&E editors for Cedars as well as the social media lead. He enjoys getting sucked into good stories, playing video games and swing dancing in the rain.

Images courtesy of Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.