Viewers can’t get enough of this video game adaptation’s rich wasteland.

Over the last month, the most talked about show has been Fallout. Since the video game adaptation’s debut on April 10, it has brought new-found love to the long-running franchise. The series was already the second-most watched show on Amazon Prime Video in its first two weeks worldwide with 65 million viewers. However, in the United States, Fallout has now claimed the biggest opening in the streamer’s history.

According to Nielsen’s streaming ratings, over the course of its first five days of release, Fallout garnered 2.9 billion minutes of viewing time. This drops a nuke on the previous record holder Reacher, whose series premiere in 2022 received 1.84 billion minutes in the same time period. This is also more than double the second place finisher, Bluey. The popular children’s show had 1.39 billion minutes viewed in the build up to that series’ latest special, “The Sign”, which debuted on April 14.

“War… War Never Changes”

Rather than adapting its material like The Last of Us which followed the story of games almost one-to-one, Fallout is a brand-new story in the established universe of the games. The series takes place in the year 2296, the furthest we’ve ever been in the franchise’s timeline, taking place around a decade after the events of Fallout 4. In terms of narrative, we mainly follow Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell) of Vault 33. She’s forced to leave her cozy vault life when a group of raiders kidnaps her father (Kyle MacLachlan). She’s never been subjected to the brutal wasteland and, what starts out as a simple rescue mission, quickly starts to unravel the various horrific conspiracies and secrets that coat the Fallout universe in dark radiation.

Along the way, Lucy encounters mysterious beings like The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) and allies like Maximas (Aaron Moten) of The Brotherhood of Steel, who both have their own complex histories/arcs that widen Lucy’s clean worldview. While Fallout was highly anticipated due to the sheer popularity of the series’ name and the talent involved, like Jonathan Nolan, no one was sure what to expect from the series. From its quickie characters to its clear love for the source material to how the story pushes the lore forward, Fallout perfectly captures this wasteland’s signature sense of harsh reality and oddball humor. That continues to be reflected in the viewership, which has also retroactively brought many of its fans to the games for the first time. Thanks to various sales across PS5, Xbox, and PC, the player counts for Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 76 are at an all-time high.

Fallout has already been renewed for Season 2. While waiting for the series to inevitably break more records, you can currently stream Season 1 in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video. You can also view some of Fallout’s new merchandise, like the McFarlane Toys’ action figure line and the series’ vinyl.