Fallout Series Timeline Adds Up, Says Todd Howard

The release of Amazon’s adaptation of Fallout has sparked a resurgence in the series and increased focus on the alt-history that binds it all together. Some fans recently raised concerns that events in the TV show seemingly retconned the events of the black sheep of the Fallout family, New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Vague spoilers for New Vegas and Amazon’s show to follow!

Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard and Fallout TV executive producer Jonathan Nolan sat with IGN to hash out the timeline. According to Howard, showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet shocked him with the idea of nuking Shady Sands, the capital of the New California Republic, shortly after the events of New Vegas. Howard eventually came around to the idea: “We talked through it, and it was, ‘This would be a pretty impactful story moment that a lot of things anchor on.”

It sounds like they had to cut things quite finely to make everything work, but according to Howard, the Fallout timeline remains sacrosanct: “We’re careful about the timeline. There might be a little bit of confusion in some places. But everything that happened in the previous games, including New Vegas, happened. We’re very careful about that. All I can say is we’re threading it tighter there, but the bombs fall just after the events of New Vegas.”