The Fallout Season 2 Discourse is Driving Me Around The Bend, New Vegas Was Always Doomed

We’re well into Fallout Season 2 now and I’m enjoying it a lot, but my love for the series is being slowly ruined by the non-stop criticism of its depiction of New Vegas…

It all started at the end of the first season, when Lucy Maclean’s dad flees the scene and escapes to Nevada, with Lucy and The Ghoul in pursuit. One of the final shots is Lucy’s deadbeat dad staring out at a crumbling New Vegas, and by God you’ve never seen such an incomprehensible mix of hype and outrage.

We’re several episodes into Season 2 now and foolishly I’ve been monitoring the discourse with each episode. A lot of the criticism I’ve seen is very fair. I’m also quite disappointed with Maximus’ Season 2 story so far, and I’m not loving the Vault 33 stuff either. I’m also baffled by the insane route The Ghoul has dragged Lucy through to get to New Vegas. Some fans mapped it out and it makes no sense at all.

However, the criticism I’ve found most frustrating are the constant comparisons to what the Nevada looks like in-game compared to what we’ve seen in the show, and the same for the factions.

I’ve been replaying Fallout: New Vegas recently and as always I’m having a great time. However while the show has taken the lore in some surprising directions I haven’t found the changes as egregious as everyone else for some reason. Many fans are their breaking point already, with the frustration building and building with each new episode.

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The Strip

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, New Vegas itself. When The Ghoul and Lucy finally get to the gates of New Vegas something is clearly wrong. The Kings, a fan-favourite group from the game, are meandering outside the gates as feral ghouls, and inside the once bustling casinos are silent and empty.

Unsurprisingly many took to X and other social media platforms to voice their outrage at this development, as several New Vegas endings saw the player bring peace and prosperity to the New Vegas Strip so to see it in ruin conflicts with the supposed canon. It’s also being used as evidence to support a theory that Bethesda hates New Vegas and wants to erase it entirely.

Now I’m just as surprised as everyone else to see New Vegas crumbling to pieces but let’s be honest for a second, is it really that surprising?

It’s said Fallout Season 2 is set around 15 years after Fallout: New Vegas, which doesn’t sound like a lot but that’s a huge amount of time in the world of Fallout.

Sure, maybe the Courier, NCR, Mr House or whoever did bring peace and prosperity to The Strip but with threats on all sides of the wasteland was it ever guaranteed to stay that way? The families that own the casinos were already plotting to take over each other’s land, and I doubt even the Securitrons could hold back a rabid pack of Deathclaws if they decided to descend on New Vegas. What I’m saying is a lot can happen in 15 years, especially when the never-ending threats of Fallout are concerned.

Death And Disarray

As for the factions, there’s a lot to unpack here. The NCR were always useless folks. Every NCR representative you meet in Fallout: New Vegas makes it clear that The Legion is far more powerful, to the point that NCR soldiers are prepared to commit suicide if The Legion gets within spitting distance of them. They were on the back-foot for the entire game so it’s not a surprise to see them almost extinct in the show.

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The Legion are a bit more complex. Caesar died and the faction split in two, with two new Caesars fighting for leadership. Now I will agree that The Legion has been handled poorly so far, as their conflict has been played for laughs more so than an interesting development for the Mojave. That said, given the history of the group their current status makes complete sense. Caesar was an admirable leader, even the NCR had a modicum of respect for him. The Legion gathered strength under him by attacking other tribes and assimilating the remnants, growing in number and power. Following his canonical death and his presumed reluctance to announce a successor it’s not hard to believe this melting pot of culture would start to break down, with those old tribal mentalities resurfacing in a bid for power.

As for minor groups like the Khans, Boomers, Fiends etc, they could have either been wiped out by the elements/each other or moved most of their activity elsewhere. The Khans at least have some remaining presence in New Vegas as they’ve moved into Novac.

The only faction I can’t quite wrap my head around is the Brotherhood of Steel. In the game you find them in a strict lockdown, with no soldiers going in or out so whether that’s still canonically going on is anyone’s guess. The other option is they’ve been wiped out, which isn’t as unlikely as you’d think despite their resources and the Courier can blow them up for fun. Whether that’s the route the show is going down though is currently unknown.

Overall I think Fallout Season 2 is solid. At the moment I think the first season is better but we’ve still got a few episodes left to get through, so we’ll see how they compare at the end.

Ultimately though I’m not offended by the current state of New Vegas. I don’t think Bethesda is trying to stick it to the fans either. What I do think is we’ve been away from the Mojave for almost two decades and things aren’t exactly how we left it, but rather than scream bloody murder we should wait and see what’s happened first, and how it ties into the history we know and love from the game.