Obsidian co-founder Chris Avellone, who worked on the story for the acclaimed video game “Fallout: New Vegas,” is not a big fan of some of the writing on Amazon Prime’s “Fallout” TV series adaptation.
Speaking with Insider Gaming recently, Avellone explained that he’s had issues with the scripts on the live-action “Fallout” series even as he seems to like the show overall:
“I kind of wish the game writing for TV shows like that where they’re mimicking a game, would kind of elevate a bit. [Cyberpunk] Edgerunners was really cool, no problems there, but sometimes I just wish the script quality on the Fallout TV show was a little higher. I guess I feel embarrassed when I see some of the lines being done but it’s a fun show.
Continuing on, he praised Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell’s performances in the series, and also spoke further about the difficulty in adapting games to the screen.
He says it can still come down to the prejudices of screenwriters thinking game writing is ‘beneath’ them and haven’t played the source material to truly understand what it is they are adapting:
“I don’t mean to put all Hollywood writers in this category but I think some of them still struggle with, ‘Okay, well I’m writing a game franchise and obviously those game writers didn’t really know what they were doing because I’m a respected Hollywood writer and I know how these things are supposed to look.’
I think for some of them it’s really easy to dismiss that work and go in their own direction which they think is more solid but the problem is when they do that they don’t have any real sense of, they probably haven’t played Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 or New Vegas, so a lot of the context has gone and so have opportunities.”
The series has been critically acclaimed across its two seasons and has been widely considered one of the best screen adaptations of a video game property to date. The show’s third season is currently in production.
