This article contains major spoilers for the Fallout Television Series.

Highlights

• Shady Sands' nuking in the Fallout TV series disappointed fans of the original games, marking a significant narrative departure.
• Fallout designer John Deiley criticizes the series' direction, feeling it strays from the original vision of the game creators.
• Fallout 2 experienced a surge in player count following the show's release, showcasing the renewed interest in the game series.

By all metrics, the Fallout television series has been a huge success for Amazon, earning positive reception from critics and fans alike. However, not every narrative decision has been universally praised, and one of the more contentious choices was the nuking of Shady Sands, the then capital of the New California Republic.

Shady Sands was a beloved location originally appearing in the original Fallout. It was a humble settlement striving for self-sufficiency, eventually growing into a sprawling town and the capital of the New California Republic by the events of Fallout 2. It’s a memorable location for fans of the original games, and seeing it wiped out in the television series may have been a disappointment to some.

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Talking to TheGamer, Fallout 2 designer John Deiley who worked on the expanded Shady Sands expressed his misgivings about the decision.

“I do not like what they are doing,” Deiley says. “I think they are slowly but surely changing the license into something that it was never intended to be by us designers and the original producers. But like I said, it belongs to them. The only thing that really bothers me is that every time I read the news or see a trailer and their name comes up on it, it really annoys the hell out of me because none of that was theirs. They have no idea, in my opinion, what they’re doing.”

Fallout has certainly taken a different direction in recent years, becoming more self-referential and action-oriented, a deviation from the retrofuturistic almost grimdark tone of the original two titles. To those critical of this direction, the nuking of Shady Sands felt symbolic.

Despite this criticism, Deiley says he is ‘proud’ of the show’s release and subsequent renewed interest in the game series. He mentions Project Arroyo, a fan-made re-imagining of Fallout 2 that he hopes succeeds.

Fallout 2 achieved a new peak player count this past month, in the wake of the show’s release.