Todd Howard talked Fallout writers out of visiting New Vegas in season 1, calling it a "minefield"

Turns out New Vegas could have shown up in the Fallout show much earlier. As Todd Howard revealed on the Kinda Funny Gamescast, the writers wanted to head to the Mojave as far back as the earliest pitches for season 1 – but he convinced them to hold off on that idea.

Howard said:

"I would save that. That can be... that's such an iconic thing for Fallout, let's establish the base and then we can go to New Vegas."

In hindsight, that advice proved prescient. Season 2, which brought viewers back to the Mojave 15 years after the events of New Vegas, triggered waves of mixed reactions on social media – some fans pushed back hard against the changes made to the factions and their decline, even though that outcome was strongly implied in Fallout: New Vegas. Others were just glad the show explored what happened after the RPG ended.

Either way, the solid foundation built in season 1 helped the series hold up against that backlash when it finally came.

"I thought they did a fantastic job in taking it there because it's tricky. You have an iconic area, a beloved game, particular storylines that end in different ways, and really strong characters. And there's like a million ways to f**k that up. So it can be a bit of a minefield, right? And I thought they did a great job, we spent a lot of time saying like, 'Let's not refute anything that happened in the games, but let's see if there's some areas the writers really want to push forward.'"

Season 3 is set to begin filming later this year. Where the story goes from here is still unknown – New Vegas will likely return, since House's survival and the unresolved conflict between the NCR and the Legion still hang in the air.

Meanwhile, the Ghoul is headed for Colorado – the setting of Fallout Tactics – and the brewing Brotherhood of Steel civil war could theoretically push the story all the way to Washington DC or Boston.