Despite being an amazing video game adaptation, Prime Video’s Fallout forgot one of the game’s biggest mechanics.

Prime Video’s Fallout series is a smash hit with fans and critics. The series is Certified Fresh at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and is being hailed by fans as an excellent video game adaptation. Starring Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Aaron Moten, Fallout is set in a post-apocalyptic, retro-futuristic (try saying that three times fast) world ravaged by nuclear war. The series follows the three distinctly different survivors as their personal quests become intertwined in a hunt to find a scientist’s head and alter the future of the wasteland.

Series creators Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet put painstaking detail into translating every element from the beloved video games to the screen. Fallout is filled with Easter eggs and nods that fans of the games are sure to pick up on, and incorporates the games’ lore into its original story. However, there is one major feature from the video games that Prime Video’s adaptation forgot to include.

Fallout Didn’t Include the V.A.T.S. System

V.A.T.S., otherwise known as the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, is a fundamental feature of Fallout and has been a staple of the series since Fallout 3 (2008). Before Fallout 4 vastly improved the series’ shooting mechanics, V.A.T.S. was essential for players to master to survive combat encounters. The system slowed down time and allowed players to target specific parts of their enemies. The system was integrated into the game’s core mechanics, improving as the player leveled up their SPECIAL stats and via perks.

Fallout is not subtle in its inclusion of elements from the games. The design of the vaults and power armor are taken, pixel for pixel, from the games. But the V.A.T.S. system isn’t mentioned in the show. It feels strange that a system integral to the video games was hardly referenced in Prime Video’s series. For a series that was so overt with its incorporation of features from the games, there are many ways V.A.T.S. could have appeared in the series. The targeting system could have popped up in the HUD of Maximus’ (Aaron Moten) power armor. Alternatively, the feature could have been referenced in one of the many shots of Lucy’s (Ella Purnell) Pip-Boy – the wrist-mounted computer.

Prime Video’s Fallout series feels closest in design to the later entries in the video games, primarily Fallout 4 and Fallout 76. Both games featured greatly improved shooting mechanics, similar to Call of Duty, and V.A.T.S. became more optional for players to use. However, games like Fallout: New Vegas relied on the targeting system to counteract its difficult shooting design. With the final shot of Prime Video’s series showcasing the unmistakable New Vegas skyline, there is a chance that V.A.T.S. could appear in the eagerly anticipated second season as the series has officially been greenlit.

Some fans believe the series references the system in an early episode. When The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) is spraying lead at the citizens of Filly, the action sequence features a lot of slow-motion shots. The V.A.T.S. system didn’t just slow down time when players are aiming; it also featured a ‘bullet time’ style kill-cam as the player’s projectile (be it a bullet, a mini-nuke, or Jangles the Moon Monkey) hits its target. The series uses slow motion to showcase the ‘Bloody Mess’ (a Fallout 4 perk) The Ghoul makes as his explosive rounds (another Fallout feature) rip through the bodies of raiders. While this may be a subtle nod to the V.A.T.S. system, fans still want to see the system explicitly shown in future seasons of the show.

Fallout Is Still an Amazing Video Game Adaptation

Fallout not featuring the V.A.T.S. system doesn’t, at all, make it a bad video game adaptation. The show is still near perfect in its translation of the games to live-action. After decades of Hollywood studios missing the mark with video game adaptations, gamers are finally relieved to see a consistent run of movies and shows getting it right.

Of course, the most prominent example is HBO’s The Last of Us, but Netflix has also nailed it with their Arcane and Castlevania animated shows. The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has also seen tremendous success with its feature film adaptations, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie was also a hit last year. Surprisingly, even the Angry Birds Movie resonated reasonably well with critics and audiences in 2016. However, Prime Video’s Fallout is perhaps the least ashamed of its video game roots and embraces these features in its storytelling.

While the design and setting are easily taken from the Fallout games, Wagner and Robertson-Dworet, along with series producer and director Jonathan Nolan, have even incorporated aspects from the games into the dialogue. When Lucy and Maximus meet two travelers on a bridge, with Maximus and the strangers preparing to fight each other, Lucy attempts to talk them out of potential conflict so they can pass each other peacefully. Fans have likened this moment to the speech checks that appear regularly throughout the series and are based on the player’s Charisma skill.

Earlier in the series, when Lucy encounters a half-naked man in front of his ruined house and asks him for directions, she does so with her gun instinctively pointed at him, then realizes and puts the weapon down. This is a distinct reference to the first-person camera in the Fallout games, which always makes it appear as though the player is pointing their weapon at NPCs when talking to them until, after a certain amount of time, the weapon is automatically dropped from the frame.

With Fallout Season 1 being immensely popular, exploding to the top of Prime Video’s streaming chart immediately upon release, Season 2 has finally been confirmed. Luckily, audiences will eventually get an answer to the cliffhanger ending Fallout was left on. Season 1 of Fallout is streaming now on Prime Video.