Something that is quickly learned when working on creating art of any kind is that it is impossible to please everyone. There will always be someone who feels offended, upset, or left out of the discussion. It’s inevitable. Humans are not a hive mind. That’s why works that try to please everyone rarely turn out really well; because they end up making compromises that make it possible to be liked by almost everyone, but loved by almost no one. Including their authors.
Jonathan Nolan, creator of the Fallout series, the legendary game by Bethesda, has stated exactly at a press event recorded by the English lifestyle magazine T3. Stating that it is impossible to please the fans, he has affirmed that as an artist, what you must do is seek to please yourself; do what you want to do and trust that you will make the best possible version of it. Something that may sound alarming to many people, but it has a twist. He talks about it as a fan of the franchise.
While it doesn’t aim to please the most avid Fallout fans, it also doesn’t intend to deviate from what the franchise is. Something evident when Bethesda had to ask him to change his script due to its similarities with what they wanted to do in Fallout 5. Because when he says he’s a fan, he means it.
According to Nolan’s statements, “for me, it started with Fallout 3, which consumed about a year of my life.” Clarifying that “back then I was a young aspiring writer, and that almost ruined my whole life,” since the game is “ridiculously playable and fun.” Does that mean he has any kind of resentment or reservation about the franchise? Not at all. As he himself has said, Fallout is “a series of games that I absolutely love.”
The Fallout series was announced in July 2020 and we didn’t receive its first trailer until December 2023. It will premiere on Amazon Prime on April 11th, releasing all eight episodes of the first season at once.