Later this week Prime Video is set to release it's brand new drama series Fallout. It's an apocalyptic 10-part series based on the highly successful video game franchise of the same name. It's set 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse destroyed most of North America, and follows the lives of a select few individuals attempting to survive in this brutal new world.
It's got a great cast (hello Ella Purnell from Yellowjackets), complex characters and a rich world to explore. But if you've never played the video game before there's quite a lot to understand about the complexity of Fallout. So think of this as your quick cheat sheet to everything you need to know about Prime Video's Fallout.
What is Fallout about?
Based 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse which has destroyed most of humanity, the series focuses on three main characters who all have very different experiences of the apocalypse.
Lucy is a Vault Dweller who has lived her entire life underground in the safety and security of heavily guarded vaults. However, her idealistic spirit is put to the test when she must go to the surface for the very first time. There's then Maximus, who is part of the group the Brotherhood of Steel, a militaristic group intent on keeping order. And finally there's The Ghoul, who is a morally ambiguous bounty hunter and holds over 200 years of the Earth's history.
The three characters' lives collide when they end up chasing an artefact from a researcher which has the potential to change everything about their world.
What Fallout terms do I need to know?
If you're not well versed in the terminology of Fallout (same) then buckle in as there's quite a few specific game phrases you need to understand before you watch the series.
Brotherhood of Steel
This a militaristic, religious, cult group who are obsessed with restoring order on the surface. They collect knowledge but aren't exactly forthcoming about sharing it with others and one of the main characters of the series Maximus (Aaron Moten) is part of this group.
Ghoul
Nope it's not a ghost. In Fallout, Ghouls are the names given to mutated humans who appear in various stages of decay. One of the main characters of the series Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) is a Ghoul.
Great War
This refers to the period of time that set off the chain of events of the series. It was a global thermonuclear war that happened on 23 October 2077.
Gulper
A gulper is a rare creature which is essentially a mutated salamander who will, erm, hunt and eat human flesh. Lovely.
Raiders
As the name suggest raiders are humans who exist solely by murdering and plundering other human groups. They're lawless and usually survive in small gangs.
RadAway
As nuclear radiation is one of the biggest threats in Fallout, there is a drug called RadAway, that as the name suggests, gets rid of the radiation in the human body.
Smoothskin
Ghouls refer to non-mutated humans as 'smoothskins'.
Vault Dweller
Following the Great War a small population of humans managed to survive underground in purpose built vaults, which they've developed over the last 200 years. People who live in these vaults like Lucy (Ella Purnell) are officially known as Vault Dwellers or Vaulties or Vaulters.
Vault-Tec
Before the war kicked off company Vault-Tec won the federal government's contract to build a series of nuclear bunkers in case America was subject to a nuclear war.
Wasteland
The Wasteland is essentially all the earth above ground which had been destroyed by the nuclear fallout.
Fallout is available on Prime Video from 11 April
