“Fallout” is a phenomenal video game adaptation. Much like the animated video game shows “Arcane,” “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners,” and “Castlevania,” the Prime Video series simply takes the concept and lore of its source material and creates an original story set in the same universe, as opposed to directly adapting the plot of one of the games that inspired it.

As a result, it’s able to surprise both gamers and newcomers to the franchise alike, all while providing fresh context for the property’s previously-established canon and allowing it to add something new and different to the source material without completely breaking the gaming experience. Perhaps most importantly, this also frees up its writers to tell an original story designed specifically for the medium of television.

Indeed, by focusing on letting viewers experience the franchise’s fantastical setting, the “Fallout” TV show has been able to avoid the pitfalls that plague many video game adaptations. In that sense, the series’ production design and world are as much the stars as its cast. The show has also managed to smoothly translate the original games’ visuals into live-action, with scenery that resemble the games’ virtual wasteland and a retrofuturistic aesthetic that gives the show a unique look. At the same time, the “Fallout” series has even managed to capture the games’ satirical and extremely darkly comedic tone, which helps to set it apart from the myriad of other post-apocalyptic stories we’ve seen in film and TV over the last 15 years. It’s a bleak show, sure, and there is danger and cruelty everywhere, but at the same time it’s often silly, hilarious, bizarre, and extremely political.

Now, the first trailer for “Fallout” season 2 has arrived, providing a sneak peek at the show’s interpretation of New Vegas, a setting from the original games that’s home to both conflicting factions and untold mutated horrors. Indeed, the best part of the trailer is when it reveals the live-action version of the scariest creature from the original video games: the deathclaw.

The last shot of the trailer shows Ella Purnell’s Lucy and Walton Goggins’ Ghoul hiding from a giant, horned, clawed creature and then running the hell away from it. This is, without a doubt, our first look at a deathclaw.

For those not aware, the deathclaw has been around since the very first “Fallout” video game and has become a staple of the franchise. On top of being visually striking, it’s also the hardest monster to kill in the games. A genetically engineered reptilian, the deathclaw was the result of experiments conducted by the U.S. government in its efforts to find a suitable replacement for human soldiers in battle. But after the Great War that decimated the planet and created a nuclear wasteland, the deathclaw population exploded and they came to be the apex predator of the wasteland. Now, given that the “Fallout” TV series already explained how its apocalypse came about in season 1, it seems highly likely we’ll be getting some version of the deathclaw’s origin story in season 2.

The inclusion of the deathclaw is the latest proof that the “Fallout” TV show understands you can’t prestige your way into being a good video game adaptation. You need to capture what makes the source material unique, not just what made the games popular. Here, it’s not just the look of the apocalypse and the satire, but it’s also the weird little visual details and monsters that populate the wasteland that make the games so beloved. Thankfully, the trailer for season 2 includes not only gorgeous shots of New Vegas but also the deathclaw and even hints of another creature from the games (namely, the radscorpions). “Fallout” is pulp, and the more the TV show remembers that, the more it will stand out as a video game series.

Now the real question is: Can we get aliens in this show? They exist in the games’ canon, having originated as a silly Easter egg and since become a whole DLC that allows you, as the player, to go inside an alien spaceship. Given the Nevada setting of season 2, it’s possible we may even get a glimpse at Area 51.

All shall be revealed when “Fallout” season 2 premieres on Prime Video on December 17, 2025.