Josh Sawyer, the director and designer of Obsidian's landmark 2010 game Fallout: New Vegas, has declared Amazon's television adaptation to be among the finest video game conversions ever attempted for screen. His endorsement carries particular weight given that Season 2 of the show is directly set in the New Vegas location he originally created.
In an interview with The 41st Precinct, Sawyer proved enthusiastically supportive of the series despite harboring minor reservations he seemed reluctant to call actual criticisms. "I think it's an amazing adaptation," he said. "I know that the bar is not always very high for TV or film adaptations of video games, but I think it's one of the best that I've seen, certainly."
Sawyer acknowledged that any creator reviewing another's work finds moments where different choices might have been made. "I would say that there are sort of critiques or like personal things where I would say, 'I don't know if I would have taken the plot in that direction,' or, 'I don't know if I would have done that with that character,' but that's like, any writer is going to look at something and be like, 'I don't know if I'd do that.' I don't think they're like real criticisms," he explained.
On the casting of Justin Theroux as Mr. House, a character Sawyer did not write or create, the veteran designer offered unqualified praise. "I love Justin Theroux and I just love him in everything, and I think he was a great Mr. House, personally. I am very interested to see where it goes," he said.
Getting the Wasteland Right
Sawyer visited the Season 2 set and inspected the physical recreation of iconic locations from the game. "I got to see the vault and I got to see Freeside. They look like the game. They look really, really close," he reported, though he noted that layout details weren't identical to the original game's design.
The interview touched on fan complaints regarding the orientation of Dinky the T-Rex, a statue in the town of Novac. In Fallout: New Vegas, the dinosaur faces away from town, serving as a sniper vantage point. The Amazon show rotated it 180 degrees so that it faced the motel, a change made to enable a specific action sequence in Season 2, Episode 1 where protagonist Lucy fires from the statue toward enemies outside the motel.
Sawyer sided with the production's decision. "I remember people were really upset that Dinky has turned around, and I'm like, personally... I get why people get upset about that, but also the scene wouldn't work at all because it's about Lucy firing into the thing or whatever. So I understand why they did it. I wasn't personally really bent out of shape about it," he said, adding with humor that fans might now view him as a traitor to the franchise.
The designer emphasized that the show carves its own narrative path through familiar settings. "What's interesting though is the plot is like, yes, New Vegas was there, but it wasn't about the plot of New Vegas. It's their own plot that they're charting," he explained as attention turned to the series' future.
The Season 2 finale positions Colorado as the location for Season 3, with actor Walton Goggins' character The Ghoul already heading in that direction. Colorado remains unexplored in the mainline Fallout video games, though Sawyer previously worked on a canceled Fallout 3 spinoff called "Van Buren" that was set there. Pre-production on Season 3 has begun, with shooting commencing this month in Los Angeles. The cast for the upcoming season includes Manny Jacinto, Thomasin McKenzie, Emily Mortimer, and Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul, whom Bethesda chief Todd Howard described as "a Fallout fan from way back."
Author Emily Chen: "Sawyer's blessing carries real weight, and his willingness to defend creative choices over slavish accuracy is the kind of grounded thinking that separates genuine good faith from toxic fan gatekeeping."
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