Bethesda Is Trying to Figure Out What ‘Fallout’ Games Season 3 Might Tie Into

We got a little early treat last night with the launch of the sophomore season of Amazon’s Fallout adaptation, but work is already well underway on a third season of the series. But that doesn’t just mean writing and filming—in the case of Bethesda, it means trying to figure out the symbiotic relationship between the show, the games’ past, and their future.

“For us on the game and TV show side, we’re writing season three now,†Bethesda director Todd Howard recently told Variety of current plans for the show’s future now that season two is making its way to streaming. “We’re having those conversations now of, what are we doing in season three for the TV show and what elements can we bring into our games at that time when it comes out that don’t feel forced or fake.â€

What’s interesting here is that Howard isn’t thinking about what will pass from the games back into the show’s vision of the Fallout wasteland (like how a lot of the background of season two draws on the beloved spinoff Fallout: New Vegas), but instead what the show might impact upon Fallout‘s gaming future. Bethesda has long been open about how the success of the show has seen the game studio think about ways to bring elements of the TV series back into the Fallout games, but looking ahead, their future and the show’s future may not exactly be aligned on new entries any time soon.

Bethesda hasn’t ever formally announced a fifth Fallout title, but it has been talking about it as a far-off distant project after the release of The Elder Scrolls VI, which is expected… well, at some point. Even if we were to get it by, say, 2030, Fallout as a TV show might have come and gone by that point, unless we get into the rare territory of a big-budget streaming series getting seven or more seasons.

It’s far more likely, then, that Fallout show tie-ins will find their way into what can be done for current projects, like the live-service support of the multiplayer spinoff Fallout 76—which recently actually launched a major tie-in for season two’s release, bringing the Ghoul to the game as part of a new bounty hunting system. Or perhaps, at some point, to try and satiate appetite for the series, we might get remasters or remakes of the “modern†games in the series (Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4) that incorporate elements from the show as new content to sweeten the deal of Bethesda’s latest bout of port-mania.

But it’s equally likely that Bethesda will realize that, really, it doesn’t have to do anything to tie the show and the games together explicitly to bridge TV viewers and gamers. After all, when season one turned out to be a hit for Prime Video, player counts for both Fallout 76 (a game from 2018) and Fallout 4 (a game from 2015!) saw dramatic spikes as people who watched the show looked to keep their wasteland fix going.

Whatever Bethesda has planned for future collaborations between the show and the games, just don’t expect Walton Goggins to ever play it.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.