Fallout is the Perfect Blueprint for Prime Video’s Mass Effect Series

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The popular TV show Fallout just finished its second season on Prime Video. Its success offers a good model for how Prime Video could adapt another beloved video game series, Mass Effect. Unfortunately, a large-scale Mass Effect adaptation has been stuck in development for 16 years, with Amazon working on it for almost five of those.

As a huge fan of these kinds of stories, I always get a little worried when a beloved game gets adapted for TV. The biggest challenge, especially with sprawling universes like Fallout and Mass Effect, is making the show ‘fit’ into what we already know without retreading familiar ground. You see, with role-playing games, everyone’s experience is different! My Fallout isn’t necessarily the same as yours, and the same goes for Mass Effect – the characters you save, the choices you make, even who your main character is, all vary. Thankfully, both shows seem to be sidestepping a direct adaptation of the games themselves, which makes sense. Instead, they’re building on the fascinating world and lore fans have been discussing for decades, and that’s exactly what I want to see!

How Fallout Creates a Blueprint for a Mass Effect Television Series to Follow (Without Alienating Fans)

While a few characters carry over, the Fallout series generally introduces fresh heroes and villains with each installment. The show is packed with hidden references and details that fans of the Fallout games will enjoy discovering and theorizing about, but it doesn’t require any prior gaming knowledge to understand and appreciate the story. This is precisely the strategy the Mass Effect television series should follow.

BioWare, the developers of Mass Effect, recently announced the next game will take place after the events of the original trilogy. This means players will encounter new characters navigating the aftermath of the Reaper invasion. While this shares some similarities with other post-apocalyptic stories, it’s unique in its focus on a galaxy-spanning society rebuilding, rather than struggles for power within a single ruined city. Interestingly, BioWare has clarified this isn’t a firm commitment – the story could still change before the game is released.

Like the Fallout games and show, which usually focus on a limited area, Mass Effect takes place across the entire Milky Way galaxy. A new Mass Effect series could be built around rebuilding mass effect relays after the Reaper War, avoiding the question of what happened to them. Alternatively, the show could be set before or during the events of the games, letting the new characters have their own stories while Commander Shepard’s adventures unfold separately.

This approach lets beloved characters like Liara T’Soni return, and allows other familiar faces to appear in smaller roles. The show could even officially recognize the most popular decisions players made throughout the games. Fallout has already done something similar within its own series. With a little creativity, a Mass Effect show could expand on the game’s story without ignoring the unique experiences each player had.

Mass Effect Has a Tougher Path Than Fallout Because of Its Famous Protagonist

Adapting Mass Effect into a TV series is proving more challenging than adapting Fallout. Fallout games each feature unique characters and timelines, offering flexibility. Mass Effect, however, has a single, continuous storyline where characters can die, and player choices heavily impact the narrative. A Mass Effect series needs to carefully balance staying true to the established story and avoiding alienating dedicated fans who are invested in their own unique playthroughs.

Most Mass Effect fans probably aren’t clamoring for live-action appearances by Ashley Williams or Kaiden Alenko. But the idea of not seeing characters like Garrus Vakarian, Jack, Tali’Zorah, or Urdnot Wrex – or a Korgan free from the genophage – is much more disappointing. Hopefully, the show will consider setting some scenes before the original game trilogy, similar to what Fallout did in both of its seasons. This would allow Wrex and other beloved characters, whether they survive Virmire or not, to appear. There’s a two-year gap where Commander Shepard is presumed dead, which offers plenty of storytelling possibilities.

The world of Fallout is so sprawling and its history so fragmented that the TV show creators have a lot of freedom to choose what elements to include. Mass Effect, however, presents a much bigger challenge. There are fewer established, key events to work with, and they even have to be careful about how they refer to the series’ main character. Warner Bros. acquired the rights to adapt Mass Effect back in 2010, but the project stalled due to these difficulties. While Prime Video has successfully adapted a game before, bringing Mass Effect to life is proving much harder and is taking significantly longer.

You can currently watch the first two seasons of Fallout on Prime Video, and filming for a third season is planned to begin in the summer of 2026. Development is also still underway on the Mass Effect series.

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2026-02-10 18:06