Fallout's TV Show & New Vegas Retcon Controversy Explained

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Fallout season 1 and Fallout: New Vegas

Summary The Fallout show altered the status of the New California Republic, causing controversy among fans about whether those changes retconned New Vegas.

The franchise's timeline leaves ample room for both the show and New Vegas to be canon.

Despite changes, multiple creators confirmed New Vegas is still considered canon.

Amazon's Fallout show seemingly retconned massive parts of Fallout: New Vegas, and the potential changes to the game's canon have caused a controversy. Despite its reverence for the games, the Fallout show changed multiple aspects of the games. One of those changes has become a source of controversy due to how it seemingly changed the series' canon. The ending of Fallout season 1 completely redefined the New California Republic's status in the wasteland, and many fans think it retconned Fallout: New Vegas.

The New California Republic was one of the most important factions in Fallout: New Vegas, though it played a much smaller role in the Fallout show. The show's version of the NCR was headed by Moldaver, the woman who lead the attack on Vault 33 and kidnapped Hank, though her involvement with the group wasn't revealed until much later. The NCR depicted in the show differed greatly from New Vegas' version, though, which has caused confusion in many fans of the franchise. How the changes made to the NCR affect the canonicity of New Vegas has led some to believe that the show retconned the game.

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When The Fallout Show Takes Place Compared To The New Vegas Game

The show takes place about 15 years after New Vegas

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One of the biggest causes of confusion lies in how the Fallout show's timeline relates to the games. The show is the latest addition to Fallout's canon timeline yet seen, as it takes place in the year 2296. Fallout: New Vegas took place in 2281, about 15 years before Lucy first left Vault 33. Setting the show further into the future of the timeline let it largely carve its own path in terms of lore, but it also gave it a chance to retroactively change the events of New Vegas.

Fallout Titles Year (In-Universe) Fallout 76 2102 Fallout 2161 Fallout 2 2241 Fallout 3 2277 Fallout: New Vegas 2281 Fallout 4 2287 Fallout season 1 2296

Why The Fallout Show's Timeline Caused A New Vegas Controversy

The destruction of Shady Sands weakened the NCR, right as New Vegas showed them at their strongest

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While it was set further in the future, the Fallout show also jumped around the timeline a bit, going as far back as before the Great War. In one such flashback, the Fallout show added a major change to the history of the NCR: the destruction of Shady Sands, the NCR capital. That addition created some big problems with the previously established timeline of the games, especially New Vegas and the First Battle of Hoover Dam, one of the most important conflicts in the NCR's history.

Condensed Timeline of Fallout's New California Republic Event Year Shady Sands was founded 2162 The New California Republic is officially formed 2189 Shady Sands became the NCR capital 2198 The NCR becomes the largest political power in California 2241 First Battle of Hoover Dam 2277 Shady Sands is destroyed in a nuclear attack 2277 Second Battle of Hoover Dam 2282 Brotherhood of Steel Attacks Moldaver's NCR Remnants 2296

In New Vegas, the NCR's operations in the Mojave were part of the organization's Eastward expansion. To devote so many troops and resources to holding an area so far from their capital was a sign of the NCR's strength. In contrast, the Fallout show depicted the destruction of Shady Sands as the beginning of the end of the NCR, with the group never regaining the same level of power in California it once had. The destruction of their capital would have significantly weakened the NCR, making it impossible for them to have such a large presence in the Mojave and hold the Hoover Dam for so long.

Fallout: New Vegas Franchise Fallout Released October 19, 2010 Developer(s) Obsidian Entertainment Publisher(s) Bethesda Genre(s) RPG ESRB M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs

Are The Events Of New Vegas Still Canon?

Yes, multiple creators confirmed New Vegas is still considered canon

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Despite the confusion it created, the Fallout show doesn't seem to have affected New Vegas' canon. Several different creators involved in both the Fallout show and the games have gone on-record to say that New Vegas is still canon. In an interview with The Wrap, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, one of the writers and co-creators of the Fallout show, said that she considers the other games to still be canon.

“We assume that all the games have happened and our show just takes place a couple years later. We wanted to be faithful to all of them and not contradict them as much as possible.”

As one of the show's creators, Robertson-Dworet has particularly authoritative insight into how the show handled the games. Since she said the games' canon was a major consideration in writing the show, there's little reason to believe Fallout would have so drastically rewritten an entire entry to the series.

On the games side of things, Bethesda Game Studios' design director and a writer for multiple Fallout games, Emil Pagliarulo, addressed whether New Vegas was still considered canon directly while answering a question on social media.

Even Todd Howard, Bethesda's executive producer and director of both Fallout 3 and 4, said he saw the show as incorporating the games' canon in an interview with Vanity Fair.

“We view what’s happening in the show as canon. That’s what’s great, when someone else looks at your work and then translates it in some fashion.”

While they may not have had the most involvement in the creation of either New Vegas or the Fallout show, their comments do speak to their opinion of the state of Fallout's canon. Both Howard and Pagliarulo indicated that the Fallout show builds off of the franchise's canon, rather than rewriting previous installments.

There are several ways the destruction of Shady Sands can fit into Fallout's canon alongside New Vegas without retconning the game. The NCR was so spread out by the time it was destroyed that it likely could have survived the attack on Shady Sands, even if it did undermine their power in California. That would simply make the NCR's control of the Mojave, and subsequently the events of New Vegas, even more important. It's also possible that Moldaver's group was a separate splinter faction, so their destruction couldn't be interpreted as the fall of the entire NCR in Fallout.

Sources: Emil Pagliarulo, The Wrap, Vanity Fair