‘Fallout’ Makes A Double Splash At Game Awards Week In Los Angeles

BusinessMedia‘Fallout’ Makes A Double Splash At Game Awards Week In Los AngelesByDavid Bloom,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I’m an LA-based columnist & consultant focused on tech & entertainmentFollow AuthorDec 11, 2025, 03:27pm ESTDec 11, 2025, 03:35pm EST (Photo by David Bloom)Three giant tech companies took advantage of The Game Awards festivities this week in Los Angeles to make a double splash around Fallout, the long-running post-apocalyptic game franchise and the hit streaming show it spawned. A power armor suit from Fallout on display in the rear patio at Tuesday night's event. (Photo by David Bloom)Monday night, Amazon Prime Video’s second season of Fallout got a Hollywood-style premiere at the Motion Picture Academy’s Museum of Motion Pictures in mid-city Los Angeles. The next night, the festivities moved west to The Lighthouse, a sleekly renovated former post office turned event and co-working space two blocks from the beach in L.A.’s Venice neighborhood, with the proceedings partly streamed on Amazon’s Twitch service. The event was sponsored by Amazon and Microsoft-owned game publisher Bethesda Softworks. Microsoft, of course, also sells Xbox game consoles, another event sponsor, and publisher Activision Blizzard. The events timed nicely to The Game Awards, which unspool tonight in downtown Los Angeles and have become a pivot point for numerous pre-show industry gatherings around town. A third sponsor, Samsung, was at Tuesday night’s event to preach the gaming possibilities on its big screen TVs. Samsung head of product for visual displays Kevin Beatty touted the game center built into newer Samsung televisions. Owners of those TVs can log in to the game center and play Fallout directly over the cloud, without needing a console or PC, he said. Play Puzzles & Games on ForbesFEATURED | Frase ByForbes™Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The PhrasePlay NowPinpoint By LinkedinGuess The CategoryPlay NowQueens By LinkedinCrown Each RegionPlay NowCrossclimb By LinkedinUnlock A Trivia LadderPlay Now“We are trying to shape the future of storytelling,” said Beatty, a former long-time Disney executive. “We have entered a new era where audiences don’t just want to watch and hear stories. They want to immerse themselves fully. This starts to hint at new worlds of entertainment.”What wasn’t streamed online Tuesday night was Season 2’s opening episode, which was screened for about 200 in-person attendees. Embargo agreements prevent me from offering much detail (but, thumbs up, Fallout fans!), except to say Walter Goggins and Ella Purnell return, among other Season 1 stalwarts, as the show shifts part of its focus to a somewhat less ruined Las Vegas. Fallout event panel members included (l. to r.) Twitch personality Will Neff, series co-creator/showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and long-time Bethesday game director and series executive producer Todd Howard.(Photo by David Bloom)Tuesday night’s event also featured a short Q&A moderated by prominent Twitch streamer Will Neff that featured two key Fallout franchise creators: showrunner and co-creator Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Todd Howard, the legendary Bethesda Games producer behind several titles for Fallout and the equally beloved Elder Scrolls. Howard, a winner of the Game Developers Conference lifetime achievement award, is also an executive producer of the video series. Howard said he was surprised the sets for the show had little “movie magic,” i.e., visual effects that try to emulate the games. Instead, so much of the sets are actual real-world recreations/constructions that evoke the games’ gritty, ruined look (and its sardonic humor). As one show creator told Howard: “It’s all computerized. The best we can do is make it real.” Some of the many Fallout-related products, including Funko Pop dolls. (Photo by David Bloom)Howard called the show’s version of power armor (if you know, you know) is “incredible. It’s really scary. Much scarier in person." His other favorite practical effect was “a real jet pack. Anyone else would (use computer-generated graphics to do) that," Howard said. “But they just said the particulate (from the jet pack’s exhaust) just looks better.” Some parts of the series are “printed directly from the game, ” Howard said. But the quest for verisimilitude had its limits. “I hope (fans) feel we honored what they love about the game,” Robertson-Dworet said. “There are so many (Fallout game) fans among our creative team. But occasionally we have to take some creative leaps.” Howard said he “cannot emphasize how much Geneva sweats (details of the show). We want to be mindful of the canon, but it evolves, even with the games."An attendee plays Burning Springs, the new expansion to Fallout 76.(Photo by David Bloom)The video series’ Season 2 debuts next week, following the Dec. 2 debut of Burning Springs, one of the biggest-ever expansions of Fallout 76, one of the pillars of the game series. The expansion adds a broad new territory to Fallout 76 gameplay in the southeast region of a devastated (and no longer united) United States.

The Game Awards unspool online at 5 pm PST this evening on Twitch and YouTube, and will be carried on Amazon Prime Video for the first time as well. Editorial StandardsReprints & PermissionsLOADING VIDEO PLAYER...FORBES’ FEATURED Video