Recently, Amazon announced a reality competition show based on Fallout. Yes, the same franchise that satirizes corporate greed and warmongering is now getting the reality TV treatment.
The show is called Fallout Shelter, named after the 2015 mobile game. It’s a ten-part series where contestants will live inside Vault-Tec’s vaults, competing for cash while facing challenges that test the seven S.P.E.C.I.A.L attributes from the games: strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck.
Studio Lambert, the same studio behind a different reality show Squid Game: The Challenge is producing the series. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s Kilter Films are involved, along with Bethesda Game Studios. Todd Howard serves as an executive producer. Casting is open until February 15 with no release date announced.
Turning dystopias into game shows
This isn’t the first time a streaming service has taken a dark, satirical property and turned it into a real competition.
Squid Game: The Challenge premiered on Netflix in November 2023 with 456 players competing for $4.56 million. Despite the irony of turning an anti-capitalist thriller into the very thing it criticized, the show was a massive hit for Netflix. The Challenge has already been renewed for a third season.
Now Amazon is following the same playbook.
Traditionally, reality competition shows have been standalone franchises. Think Survivor, Big Brother, or The Amazing Race. Basing these types of shows on scripted TV is a recent trend and it’s raising some eyebrows.
A direct contradiction
The biggest issue with Fallout Shelter is that it goes against everything the video games represent.
Fallout has always mocked propaganda, the military-industrial complex, the dehumanization that comes from treating people as expendable. It’s dark humor comes from the juxtaposition of the horror hiding behind a cheerful, retro-futuristic 1950s aesthetic. The entire franchise is built on showing you the consequences of leaving capitalism and American exceptionalism unchecked.
Now Amazon is asking real people to compete inside a Vault-Tec vault for money, all while being filmed for our entertainment.
Do you see the problem? It’s no different from taking the complaints of people forced to work grueling 18 hour shifts in a factory and turning them into a game show.
Creative limitations
Sure, Fallout Shelter won’t replicate the actual horrors featured in the games. No one’s getting turned into a super mutant, but reality TV thrives on drama and spectacle. The show has to walk the line between honoring the source material and creating compelling television.
Fallout Shelter will need to incorporate the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes, as well as the feel of living inside a Vault-Tec vault. It also needs to be a fun competition that’s interesting to watch. It’s hard to do both without undermining one or the other.
The show can’t recreate the world Fallout is set in if it’s not going to commit to the game’s original vision. Yet, it doesn’t work as a standalone project because the appeal is in the show’s connection to Fallout. The end result could be a show that nobody wants to watch.
Can Fallout Shelter survive past the hype?
Following the success of the first season of Fallout, it makes sense for Amazon to strike while the iron is hot. In the minds of these executives, what better way to get the most out of something popular than to morph it into a reality TV show?
Squid Game: The Challenge worked because the show Squid Game was a global phenomenon. Now that the hype has faded (especially after a disappointing series finale) how many people will care about Season 3 of the reality show? The same question applies to Fallout Shelter.
As soon as the TV adaptation of Fallout loses its allure, how many people will want to watch contestants compete in a vault? These kinds of shows rarely have any long-term value beyond their connection to the source material.
Fallout showed us that corporations could turn anything into a product, even the end of the world. Now Amazon is proving that point by turning the idea of Fallout into a commodity.
The irony would be funny if it wasn’t so depressing.Maybe that’s the most Fallout thing about this whole situation. We’re living in a world where satire and reality have become indistinguishable. War never changes. And apparently, neither does capitalism.
