When the Filmmakers Actually Understand the Gameplay

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About this video essay:
An analysis of Fallout, The Last of Us, and the philosophy of adapting video games

0:00 The problem of adapting interactivity
2:39 A new philosophy
3:44 What was missing
5:20 A comparison with comic book adaptations
7:02 Back to video games
7:50 A good, but easy video game adaptation
11:15 Why Fallout was the real challenge
13:00 How Fallout adapted gameplay
15:38 Why it just works
17:28 Adapting a Fallout's broader themes, meanings & vibe
21:27 What all this means
22:45 The problem of subjectivity
23:41 Why we should want more video game adaptations
25:50 The pantheon of humanity's storytelling

References:

Listen to my podcast, Cinema of Meaning:

Further Reading:

Music:
Virgil Arles – Lunar Clouds
Max Il – Regeneration
Tim Mann – All the Emotions

Additional Music:
Oliver Michael – Taken from a Void

[LikeStoriesofOld]

What did you think of the new Fallout show? And what video game adaptation are you looking forward to the most?

[Dreoni_]

For me it was the encounter with the guy who drank all her water that made me think "this is definitely a side NPC dialogue/interaction"

[Dad......]

Lucy is you as a first time player, fresh out the vault with no idea about what the world is and how it works. Maximus is your second playthrough character, where you make the risky choices and bend your morality a bit here and there to get what you want. The Ghoul is you after 2000 hours. Know all the tricks, tips, and the ins and outs of every faction. You'd have to really be having an off day for an interaction to not go your way.

[JoeNoshow]

I remember when the ghoul started dunking Lucy in the water, I began thinking, "this is silly, torture doesn't work", and then he immediately started talking about studies showing the ineffectiveness of torture before revealing he was _actually_ using Lucy as bait... I couldn't get over how cathartic the writing in that scene was.

[warandconquest]

For me the moment in Fallout where I felt like I was in the game was when they are wandering through 32 trying to figure out what happened. It perfectly captured the feeling of finding an abandoned vault with nothing but skeletons and terminal entries

[Tamisday]

For me it was the moment where the power armor got left behind outside a vault. Every time I find some abandoned power armor in the games, I search the area for clues as to the story behind how the armor got abandoned. It was cool to witness one of those story moments in action.

[helenakausch]

I don't know if this is a good comparison: But as someone who plays DND, I was realy pleasently surprised by the Dungeons and Dragons (Honor among Thieves) movie.
Sure it wasn't deep or epic cinema, but it wasn't trying to be and therefore captured the feeling of playing the game, because most groups DON'T play it super seriously.
I went into the movie not expecting much, but it was actually pretty entertaining and it gave me the impression that it was actually made by people who like the game

[lukeskywalket]

Honestly, I noticed it right away in the combat. If you were an onlooker, spectating a fight between an NPC and a player with VATS, this is what it would look like. Both sides trading fire - like on the bridge, when Maximus gets shot before he can fire on the second person, or in Filly, when Howard shot the gun out of Max's hand, but only after Max had gotten a few shots off. It's adapting _gameplay_ elements that imo really made it feel like a game adaptation.

And "Thou shalt be sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time"

[BenjamenMcCauley]

When Max shoots the Yao Guai, it’s like he had a crit shot banked. When Lucy tries to deescalate the Ghoul in Filly it feels like she failed her speech check. When Cooper leaves the dog behind when he picks up Lucy because in the games you can only have one companion at a time. It’s just great, they really do feel like moments from the when I played.

[awkwardbirb]

I remember watching this and even like minute one of when Lucy is introducing herself, as well as listing her traits and hobbies, I was thinking "Ah, we're at the character creation screen. Neat!"

I've only managed to watch the whole series once, but it's absolutely clear this was made with a lot of love for not just the setting of Fallout itself, but even the games themselves.

[MorriganAtwood]

My favorite (theory only, nobody confirmed this) small gameplay translation: Lucy aiming her gun the entire time she is very nicely asking a rando for directions because sometimes it takes a while for the player to figure out how to put their gun away once it's out. So much of your initial gameplay involves just walking up to someone to have a conversation and just pointing a whole weapon at them the entire time. Because the game never tells you that holding a certain button a little longer makes your character put it away. You have to figure that out on your own eventually (or just never, that also works.)

[mastpg]

"They're doomed, you know."

"Yes. But... a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts."

[elainaswanson]

We are finally getting video game adaptations made by people who actually play the games, the difference is so stark

[hengineer]

Then there is the unspeciried 4th main character, Norm. The only other character whose perspective is followed.

[IcarusHollow]

the moment I realized the showrunners understood the source was the start of episode 2 [i think]. lucy is exploring the desert and comes along the house with the corpses of the family. No words are needed and everything is told you from the set once she picks up the bottle reading "vault-tec plan D". That's the visual storytelling that I really loved about the games and really captures the show-don't-tell mantra. I of course had my complaints or gripes about the show but overall they definitely did it justice and I'm glad it was so well reviewed and we'll be getting more eventually.

[TheAmazingKoki]

One thing that's a big part of Fallout's qualia for me is the use of music. Fallout has many scenes where they use the games' music while showing the characters wandering around in the wasteland. This captures the exploration aspect of the games, and firmly establishes the core of the games theming for me: the juxtaposition of 50s optimism and the end of the world. You have the musically nostalgic and comforting sounds of Bing Crosby or the Ink Spots, singing their songs of longing while seeing the images of a lost world. This is exactly what you experience in the game when you move around the wasteland, and this is also what you describe the last of us is missing, the area in between where you actually end up spending the most time. To me it works even better in the series than in the games.

The scene that you describe where Lucy leaves the super duper mart definitely made it click for me as well. But for me the show already captured the feeling of the games in the start of the second episode, where you see Lucy exploring the wide an dead remains of Los Angeles to the tune of "don't fence me in".

[apblolol]

the saddest part of blowing up the city was that it was a vault society. founded by another vault, that hank didn't know about.

[jacksfacts]

I’m friends with one of the writers of the show and he was a fan of the games, and was a driving force to keep the show loyal to the games. I’m so pumped for him with how well received the show has been!

[targe]

I felt that for the first time in ep. 2 when the Ghoul starts shooting up Filly. It went into slow motion and he started tracking targets and setting up his shots - Exactly like he had just started the VATS targetting system in Fallout 4. It was so strong I think I made the distinct VATS sound in my head 😂

[DrDestructo]

A thing that killed me: in Lucy's introductory scene, she literally says her tagged Skills out loud: Repair, Science, Speech. The best thing is, if you didn't know Fallout from a gameplay standpoint, it was written in such a way that it just came off like she was giving a self-evaluation for a job position, rather then some stilted wink-wink nod-nod reference- I pointed this out to my dad, who likes the series but has only ever seen me play from over the shoulder back when I lived at home, and he laughed.