If you’ve been on Twitter at all today, you may have seen Fallout: New Vegas trending, the reason is because of the recently released Fallout TV series on Amazon.

This article will discuss something near the end of the Fallout TV series and its implications for the setting’s lore. The most we can say while remaining vague and spoiler free is: the TV show retcons New Vegas.

Ok, stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers.

CAUTION: SPOILERS

With that out of the way, let’s establish something. The Fallout TV series is canon. Todd Howard said as much: “We view what’s happening in the show as canon”. So unfortunately it’s difficult to dispute the show’s canonicity.

So What Happened?

Near the end of the series, we see some locations from Fallout: New Vegas which has drastic implications for the game’s canon status. The city of Shady Sands, which was the de facto capital of the New California Republic (NCR) was destroyed by a vault overseer and the NCR appears to no longer exist as a relevant political entity. All of this would be fine, if not for the fact that the event takes place a few years BEFORE New Vegas, effectively retconning the entire game. The destruction of Shady Sands and the fall of the NCR took place in 2277, meanwhile the events of Fallout: New Vegas took place in 2281.

So I'm learning how the Fallout tv show retcons shit and had New Vegas nuked while saying NCR is from LA rather than Shady Sands. I can't even, I'm livid. pic.twitter.com/1MtCzbCD8y

— Elpeocross伯爵🍜 (@Elpeocross) April 11, 2024

It also seems like New Vegas itself has been destroyed and the NCR has been relegated to disparate remnants causing trouble to survive. In fact, it almost seems like they’ve switched roles with The Enclave. In the original canon The Enclave was in steep decline on the west coast following the events of Fallout 2 and its remnants were nearly wiped out by the NCR. However now The Enclave are back in the Fallout TV series.

Fallout: New Vegas has always been the proverbial black sheep of Bethesda published Fallout games since it was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and favored by many fans compared to games developed by Bethesda.