Fallout season 2—what we know about the next season set in New Vegas
In this brave new era of game-to-TV adaptations, I was thrilled to learn that Amazon's Fallout TV show was pretty great. The first season tossed in all sorts of touchstones from the games: from stimpacks to power armor, and a lot of Fallout's weirdo humor—vault gene pool struggles and all. It was a hit, raking in 65 million views in its first 16 days. One of our own Fallout fans, Jody MacGregor, called it the best Fallout since New Vegas in his Fallout season 1 review. So as a result of such high praise, it's not surprising that a second season was quickly announced.
With that said, the information we have on Fallout season 2 is next to none right now. We can draw a few conclusions going off what we know about returning characters and the ending of the first season, but for the most part it's a lot of speculation. At the end of season one, we got a huge hint toward the next season revolving around New Vegas. That alone gives us a reasonable amount of information to dissect and build an idea from. But for now, here's what we know about Fallout season 2.
Is there a Fallout season 2 release date?
There is no release date for Fallout season 2 yet. But we do know that the second season was greenlit in April 2024 after the first season aired, and filming for season 2 was scheduled to begin in November 2024. That makes a 2025 release date possible, but it's a bit of a stretch. So early to mid-2026 may be a more reasonable expectation. Since filming has just begun, I imagine we won't see a trailer for the season for a while yet. That would be the biggest indicator of the season wrapping up and a release date coming soon, but that also seems a significant way off currently.
Who's in the cast of Fallout season 2?
With so little information about the season as a whole, it's not really surprising that we still have so much to learn about the cast. We know that the three main characters will be returning with Purnell, Goggins, and Moten in their roles. Choudhury and Uggams have both made statements in interviews indicating that they'll be back for season 2 as well. Here's the full list of confirmed cast so far:
- Ella Purnell - Lucy MacLean
- Walton Goggins - The Ghoul / Cooper Howard
- Aaron Moten - Knight Maximus
- Sarita Choudhury - Moldaver
- Leslie Uggams - Overseer Betty
- Macaulay Culkin - unannounced
The one wild card so far is Macaulay Culkin, who's been confirmed cast but without a character name announced. According to Deadline's report, he'll be playing "a crazy genius-type character." That doesn't tell us much but I'd put my money on him being a weirdo who turns up in New Vegas during Lucy and The Ghoul's portion of the story rather than some Brotherhood of Steel scientist.
Though unconfirmed, there are several characters who seem highly likely to turn up in season 2. Lucy's father and brother both seem like shoe-ins, as does Hank's missing wife Barb. We've also seen Squire Thaddeus survive the wasteland so far and his new ghoulish properties mean he's likely to stagger into season 2 as a continued source of comedic relief and macguffin-ing. Here's our list of likely returning characters for Fallout season 2:
- Kyle MacLachlan – Hank MacLean
- Moisés Arias – Norm MacLean
- Frances Turner - Barb Howard
- Johnny Pemberton - Thaddeus
What's the plot for Fallout season 2?
Even though we don't know anything like a release date, we know that Fallout season 2 is going to have two things for certain: New Vegas and Deathclaws. Based on the ending of Fallout Season 1, we're expecting New Vegas to play a heavy role in Season 2 since it was the only city not destroyed by a nuclear blast. But, we don't know what this setting entails other than what we already know from Fallout: New Vegas.
New Vegas isn't the only iconic piece of Fallout history we imagine we'll see this season either. For example, co-showrunner Graham Wagner explained, “We wanted to get deathclaws, but we didn’t want to just throw it away. It’s such a monumental piece, we want to save something for season 2 to be able to do it properly, not just added onto the massive world-building we had to do already in season 1. So season 2, we’re very excited to finally tackle one of the most iconic elements of the games.”
This does make me curious to see what other iconic Fallout elements they will cram into the second season since the team was so conscious of overloading the season with all the good stuff and leaving nothing to build the world of its successor.
Deathclaws will be a significantly intimidating addition to the derelict landscape of New Vegas, and hopefully, we get a good look at them in the first trailer for season 2. But, for now, you'll have to let your imagination conjure up what you think they'll look like and how they'll fit into the world already constructed in Fallout.