We finally know what happened to New Vegas after the events of Fallout: New Vegas. Sort of.
Or at least, that’s what the show wants us to believe. Season 2, episode 5, “The Wrangler,” gives fans the first definitive idea on the state of the Strip since the game ended.
How New Vegas Fell Apart
When the Ghoul walks into the Atomic Wrangler in Freeside, the bartender, Shotgun Jeff, starts talking about how the city has changed hands over the years.
“Guess you saw them Deathclaw things come up from Quarry Junction. They fightin’ around the Strip… Big whoop. Just another fuckin’ round o’ change in management’s all it is. Like one of ’em merry-go-rounds. NCR. Legion. NCR. Legion. Fuckin’ robots. No matter to me. Always somebody tryna tell us what to do.”
We don’t learn anything else because the Ghoul tells the bartender to stop talking. But it isn’t hard to put the rest of the puzzle pieces together based on what we already know.
What’s Left Standing
The NCR’s capital city Shady Sands was nuked by Hank MacLean a few years after the second battle of Hoover Dam.
The destruction of the settlement was devastating for the NCR. The faction splintered as survivors scattered across the Mojave Wasteland. If they were in charge of New Vegas at the time of the bombing, it would explain why the city is in such disarray, as the NCR’s legislative and executive branches were annihilated.
The Legion devolved into a civil war following the death of their leader Edward Sallow. The fact that no one knows who Edward picked as a successor has led to countless in-fighting that has weakened the brutal, Ancient Roman-inspired faction.
We don’t know what happened to the Great Khans and the Kings. We saw in the season 2 premiere that the Khans operate outside of New Vegas now.
We’re not sure what’s going on with the Kings. The ones who stayed in the Strip were turned into feral Ghouls due to prolonged exposure to radiation. Episode 4 “The Demon in the Snow” had the Ghoul Kings killed by a drugged up Lucy, and it’s implied she gunned down the Kings leader The King.
The Problem With Fallout’s Fog of War Approach
The show’s writers are sticking with their “fog of war approach.” By refusing to make one of the game’s multiple endings canon, they’re trying to please everyone. After this episode, it’s hard to take that idea seriously.
If someone wanted their game to end with Caesar’s Legion taking over, they now know that was a terrible idea because the faction fell apart.
If you went with the NCR ending, you see in the show that didn’t work out well at all. Without meaning to, the showrunners have confirmed which endings are canon and which aren’t.
Why This Feels Wrong
Shotgun Jeff’s exposition serves as an act of fan service for those who played New Vegas, but it doesn’t feel like it.
It’s kind of insulting because that scene invalidates the ending(s) of Fallout: New Vegas. It said none of the multiple endings mattered. In the end, the NCR, Caesar’s Legion and Robert House’s robot army, the Securitrons all failed to make a lasting impact on the Strip.
It would have been better if the show picked one ending from each of the Fallout games and tell its story from there. Establish a timeline and explore how the consequences of those endings affected the show’s setting. There’s a difference between showing a post-apocalyptic world and pretending its history doesn’t have any meaning. Right now, the Fallout TV series is doing the latter. It hides behind ambiguity but in “The Wrangler,” the fog lifts just enough to reveal the truth.
