The second season of Prime Video’s hit game “Fallout,” based on the popular video game series, has arrived.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future where the Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war, the first season was a commercial and critical success, impressing long-time fans and viewers who had never played the game.

Its surprising success had a huge impact on Bethesda Softworks, the developer of its source material, regaining lost players and creating new ones along the way.

The company’s key creatives spoke to BBC Newsbeat about working with the show’s producers and what the show’s success means for the future of gaming.

The first season of Fallout marked a turning point for Hollywood video game adaptations.

They tend to stray far from the source material and tend to be a bit trashy, earning them a reputation as low-quality cash grabs.

Then The Last of Us came along.

The 2023 adaptation of the PlayStation blockbuster released a decade ago has caused a stir.

It impressed gaming fans and won over critics and audiences who had never touched a controller.

But there are also those who think the show’s creators are going with the easy model.

Since the post-apocalyptic story of bounty hunter Joel and his adopted daughter Ellie was heavily influenced by the well-known TV show, there was an obvious roadmap to bringing it to the screen.

The story of the show closely follows the game, with slight deviations, fans pointed out Shot-by-shot comparison The sequences in it are almost identical to their pixelated inspirations.

While The Last of Us wowed audiences, Fallout’s producers were putting the finishing touches on the first season of its adaptation, which takes a different approach to its source material.

Unlike The Last of Us, which guided players through a linear story experience, the Fallout games take them into a freer world.

A branching narrative filled with side quests and incidental characters provides plenty of material to draw from, but deciding what to bring to the screen is a daunting task.

Todd Howard, director of development at Bethesda Game Studios, told Newsbeat that he first encountered the movie version of the game in 2009.

He said he agreed with the idea but didn’t move forward until he met with executive producer Jonathan Nolan.

Todd said he was a fan of the Briton’s work on HBO’s “Westworld” and was impressed by his co-writing duties on films such as “The Dark Knight” and “Interstellar,” directed by his brother Christopher Nolan.

The feeling is mutual.

“It turns out he’s a huge fan of Fallout,” Todd said.

He said the two had become “very close friends” while working on the show together, which he believed helped build trust in both television and gaming.

“Everyone involved agreed on how to treat it authentically,” he said.

One of the people responsible for maintaining the show’s authenticity is studio design director Emil Pagliarulo, a Bethesda veteran who has been closely involved with the Fallout series since the release of the groundbreaking third installment in 2008.

He told Newsbeat that we decided early on to retain the “canon” of the TV show – and that would be the guiding principle.

That means “everything that happens in the show has happened in the game, or will happen in the game,” Emile said.

Fallout, which first launched in 1997, has a rich, established lore that long-time fans of the series are familiar with and feel protective of.

Emile admitted there was some “back and forth” between the TV and gaming sides, especially in the early days.

“It’s difficult because television is a completely different medium,” he said.

“It was really about finding the right tone, but they were very respectful of the way we wanted to go.”

He said that strict adherence to the video game schedule did lead to “the occasional late-night text message” on the TV show.

“Hey, we’re shooting tomorrow and we have this problem,” Emile recalled.

“Is this…in compliance with the regulations?”

“It’s always back and forth. It’s really fun.”

While it’s exciting to see your dream world come to life in another medium, TV and game studios’ reasons for supporting adaptations are less romantic.

With the release of Fallout Season 1, most games in the series have seen significant price cuts to attract curious new players, as well as content updates and upgrades aimed at attracting lapsed players.

It had the desired effect – the latest blockbuster, Fallout 4, topped the sales charts nine years after its initial release.

But one of the most significant advancements was Fallout 76, an online multiplayer spin-off that launched in 2018.

The game was poorly received when it first launched, with players complaining about technical issues and a lack of world activities.

Bethesda has taken its time since addressing these complaints and has managed to attract a respectable number of regular players.

When Fallout’s first season ended, those numbers soared to all-time highs.

“We always knew players would come on board after seeing the show,” production director Bill Lacoste told Newsbeat.

However, creative director Jon Rush said: “It’s safe to say the number of players we saw was… an interesting surprise.”

As game makers become more directly involved in adaptations, fans often wonder what impact this will have on future games.

Jon said that some new Fallout 76 players have stayed, and it’s “impossible” for them not to influence the developer’s decisions about regular updates and tweaks.

“Exactly which way, I can’t really say. It’s an organic process,” Jon said.

“We don’t make games in a vacuum. We make them hand-in-hand with the people who play them.”

The big question for fans waiting for Fallout 5, which is likely still years away from release, is whether the TV show will have an impact on the game.

“In a nutshell, yes,” Todd said.

“Fallout 5 will exist in a world where the stories and events in the show have happened or are happening now.

“We’re considering that.”

As for whether he expects a similar surge in new players after the second season, Todd isn’t so sure.

“There are still a lot of people who don’t play the game — I think it’s getting better, but there are still people who are scared,” he said.

“They can still experience Fallout, which I think is really important because they’re equal fans of the world now.”

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