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Fallout New Vegas director doesn't 'care' what the Fallout TV show does with the RPG's lore: 'It was never mine'
Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer expresses indifference towards the upcoming Amazon Prime TV show's potential impact on the game's lore, emphasizing that he views his creations as belonging to the collective and not to himself.
The director behind Fallout New Vegas doesn't "care" what the hit Amazon Prime show means for the beloved RPG because Fallout was simply never his to begin with.
Speaking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, industry veteran Josh Sawyer is quizzed about all the discourse the Fallout TV show has seen so far—namely, what it means for the games. Bethesda has previously confirmed the show is canon, leading fans to ponder questions such as whether one scene confirms which Fallout 4 ending is canon and whether the events of New Vegas had been written out of canon.
Several senior Bethesda figures have moved to reassure fans that New Vegas does exist in the game's history, though Sawyer himself also faced concern and outrage on Twitter.
"I understood why there was maybe some confusion or ambiguity,” he says. “I don’t think I necessarily would have jumped to the conclusions that other people did. But I could see why some people might be aggravated or annoyed.”
For Sawyer, none of it is a concern. While he spent a good amount of time working on the RPG, his approach to game design more generally is that he doesn't own any of it, so why worry about what you can't control?
“This might sound weird, but whatever happens with it, I don’t care,” Sawyer explains. “My attitude towards properties that I work on, and even characters that I create, is that I don’t own any of this stuff. It was never mine. And the thing that I made is what I made.”
If you're wondering if Sawyer is a fan of the show itself, the short answer is sure. Sawyer praises how accessible it all is to fans new and old and he's "certainly interested" to see what happens in Season 2. Job done, then.
“The show really does capture the aesthetic of Fallout 4 and 76, while also feeling like it is set on the West Coast,” he says. “If you’re a fan, then you can see where the plot elements have been pulled from in previous entries. And if you’re new to it, thankfully, those plot elements are fairly straightforward.
"So I think it’s a good show for fans and a good show if you’re new to it, even though there’s a lot of stuff going on. I’m certainly interested to see where they’re going in the second season.”