The next Fallout game’s protagonist seems like an obvious choice following the success of the Amazon Prime live-action adaptation.

The next Fallout game’s protagonist seems like an obvious choice following the success of the Amazon Prime live-action adaptation. The Amazon series followed three main protagonists: Lucy, a naive vault dweller discovering the wasteland for the first time, Maximus, a squire of the Brotherhood of Steel, and Cooper Howard, a former Hollywood actor who mutated into a ghoul after the bombs fell and became a bounty hunter.

The latter character has become a fan-favorite, with audiences responding extremely positively to Walton Goggins’ performance. The TV show used Cooper Howard as a way to flashback to life before the bombs fell, showing the origins of Vault-Tec’s Vault Boy mascot and explaining the meaning behind the iconic thumbs-up imagery. With him being around for hundreds of years, his views of the world were a stark contrast to Lucy’s, as he lived through the entire post-apocalypse in the Wasteland.

The Next Fallout Spin-Off Should Follow A Ghoul’s Story

Offering A New Perspective For Players

The Next Fallout Spin-Off Should Follow A Ghoul’s Story

Offering A New Perspective For Players

Each of the numbered, mainline Fallout games except for Fallout 2 – which The Chosen One, who was the grandchild of the first game’s protagonist – have followed a vault dweller as they venture out into the wasteland. A new Fallout spin-off should let players assume the role of a ghoul, with plenty of story potential. As ghouls have an extended lifespan, the game could span many years or decades instead of days and weeks, showing changes in areas and their populations over time.

There are also several new gameplay elements that could be incorporated by playing as a ghoul. Besides their prolonged lifespans, ghouls are no longer harmed by low-level radiation and even receive physical benefits when exposed to it, but there’s also the risk of transforming into a feral ghoul. The TV series – which its creators and Bethesda’s Todd Howard have stated is canon to the games – explained that Cooper didn’t become a feral due to a chem that has a resemblance to a refillable Jet, so players could have to stock up on these to ensure they don’t turn feral after a certain amount of time. It would also provide players with a reason to carry out bounty hunter missions like Cooper does in the show, as some other elements of surviving in the wasteland would be made easier by the ghoul mutations.

Ghouls have always been a mainstay of the Fallout franchise and are some of the series’ most iconic figures, and with the popularity of the show, players have even started using mods for Fallout 4‘s character creator to at least make themselves look like one. Therefore, with the TV show taking the opportunity to tell part of its story from the perspective of one of them – and being praised for doing so – it would be a great opportunity for the games to follow suit.