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We all wondered why there was no Fallout game announcement to go with the Fallout TV show, but Phil Spencer says it was a good thing: 'That gave us some creative liberty'

Xbox boss Phil Spencer reveals that the lack of a new Fallout game during the release of the Fallout TV show was a strategic decision to allow for greater creative freedom and to avoid coordinating two very different creative processes.

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A lot of us thought Amazon's Fallout TV show might tie into a new game, or we'd at least get an announcement to capitalize on the hype, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer reveals a good reason why that never happened.

We haven't had a new, single-player Fallout game since 2015, when Fallout 4 came out. Sure, we've had the mobile Shelter and the live-service Fallout 76, but neither of those are the single-player RPGs that Bethesda is best known for. 

An Inverse article reporting on the annual Paley International Summit in New York states Spencer gave a reason why there wasn't a game to go along with the show. "We didn't have a new game lined up for the launch," Spencer says. "I actually think that gave us some creative liberty that [we] wouldn't have had if we tried to coordinate production of two very different creative processes to land at the same time."

One way the Fallout show goes in a different creative direction than the games is through its use of flashbacks. Executive producer Jonathan Nolan tells Inverse, "For the most part, in games, it’s a little harder grammatically to flashback, right?" He continues, "In a show, you can flashback and you can explore that world beforehand [...] It’s one of the things I love the most about season one and we will be doing more of that in season two."

So, expect to learn more about The Ghoul, who a lot of people wanted to get down and dirty with, and maybe even see more of the world just after the bombs fell. I'd love to see more from the Capitol Wasteland of Fallout 3, as that's my favorite game in the series, but I doubt the show will abandon the West Coast.

If, like me, you can't wait for more of the show, check out everything we know about Fallout season 2.