The creators of the TV adaptation of Fallout promised they wouldn’t canonize any of the multiple endings from the games.
They called this the “fog of war approach”. Bits and pieces of lore from the Fallout games would be added to the show. Fifteen years after Fallout: New Vegas, every faction could tell a story where they “won” without clarifying what the canon ending really is.
The writers framed this as an act of respect toward the players who spent hours trying to get a specific ending.
Despite their intentions, the writers of Fallout might have accidentally revealed what the “true” endings for Fallout 4 and Fallout: New Vegas might be.
The Prydwen and Fallout 4’s possible ending
In the show’s very first episode, the Prydwen, an aircraft used by the Brotherhood of Steel, is still operational.
Anyone who’s played Fallout 4 knows that if you side with the Institute or the Railroad, the Prydwen is destroyed when you go against the Brotherhood.
For the Prydwen to remain intact, only two endings are possible: the Brotherhood and the Minutemen ending.
With the Minutemen, the Commonwealth is rebuilt to be more democratic with new settlements. The Brotherhood can survive as long as they don’t become an enemy of the Sole Survivor.
In the Brotherhood ending, the Sole Survivor helps Elder Maxson obliterate the Institute and the Railroad. The Prydwen continues to serve as a permanent base for the Brotherhood in the Commonwealth.
The show doesn’t address this, but the appearance of the Prydwen suggests that the Sole Survivor sided with the Brotherhood at some point.
If this is the true ending of Fallout 4, that means the Brotherhood of Steel became the largest, most advanced faction in the American wasteland. The East Coast Brotherhood and the Commonwealth seem to have benefited more than the West Coast factions, and we’re seeing the consequences play out throughout season 2.
New Vegas: a city in ruins
Then there’s New Vegas. When Lucy and The Ghoul finally reach the city, it’s been abandoned. There’s no people around except for some feral ghoul Kings. There’s traces of radiation in the area. The Lucky 38 Resort and Casino, which is Mr. Robert House’s base of operations is now a Deathclaw nest.
This rules out both the Mr. House ending and the Yes Man endings, where the city is heavily defended by Securitrons. Their whole purpose is to keep Vegas secure. A functioning Securitron network would never allow Deathclaws to take over the Lucky 38.
The show also makes clear that Caesar’s Legion didn’t win out in the end, which takes that route off the table. That leaves the New California Republic ending as the only one that explains New Vegas’s fall.
For the NCR path, the faction annexes the Mojave and Hoover Dam after defeating Caesar’s Legion. They expand its territory and influence, though the faction overextends themselves as a result. The NCR brings a sense of order to the Mojave, but it comes at the loss of independence.
Unfortunately, the NCR faced a heavy loss when Hank MacLean detonated a bomb that destroyed their capital city Shady Sands. With its Senate and council annihilated, the Republic splintered as survivors scattered throughout the West Coast.
Put those pieces together and the city’s current state makes more sense. The NCR probably pushed House aside and dismantled or repurposed his Securitron army. Years later, when the Republic implodes, there’s nothing left to stabilize the city. The loss of the NCR’s executive and legislative branches would create instability that would trickle down to the rest of New Vegas.
The “fog of war approach” doesn’t work for Fallout
The hard truth about television is that the plot can’t stay vague forever.
It’s nice that the creators want to preserve some ambiguity for the people who played the games. Yet it’s not possible when you’re trying to tell a linear story.
You can’t say you won’t confirm what happened, then include a Brotherhood airship that only exists in certain endings. It would be different if the show didn’t make so many references to the game’s mythology in the show. The writers want ambiguity yet they keep dropping hints.
Somewhere out there, the Sole Survivor and the Courier made their choices. The world we see on screen is just what happened years later. The clash between a player’s personal ending and what’s canon is something the fog of war can blur, but it can’t hide it completely.
