Fallout Season 2 review roundup: Is the show is 'spinning its wheels' or is it 'a hell of a lot of fun'?

Fallout Season 2 is about to drop on us like an A-bomb (here's how to watch it, with a note that Episode 1 is arriving earlier than expected). Some lucky ducks, however—PC Gamer included—have already seen the first six episodes of Prime TV's eight-episode season.

Our verdict is already in: Weekend/AU Editor Jody MacGregor was worried that Season 2 couldn't live up to the first season, but wasn't disappointed. "Fallout hasn't simplified itself for second-screen viewers—it's still a show you need to pay attention to keep up with, and more importantly it's a show worth paying attention to," he says in his Fallout Season 2 review.

"The first season was full of great bits where the stars were absent, when it bounced back to Norm or over to Wilzig and Thaddeus and all the rest," Jody says. "Season 2 carries on some of those stories—Norm continues to be a highlight—and introduces new ones, like what Hank's actually up to in Vegas, which are as interesting as the activities of the core trio."

Even the fan service is handled well: "I imagine someone has a list of 'things that happen in Fallout games' with 'be addicted to chems' written on it near 'get a rocket-assisted super sledge'," Jody says, "and while that kind of fan-pleasing checklist-ticking can go wrong if overdone, Fallout pulls it off with a light touch."

Meanwhile, other outlets have also posted reviews of Fallout Season 2's first six episodes, and with a few exceptions, they're also mostly positive.

IGN scores the first six episodes with an 8/10, with reviewer Matt Purslow calling it "both a strong return to its uniquely bizarre post-apocalypse world and an admirably authentic adaptation of what made New Vegas distinct among its series peers. This story of warring factions, and the complex characters caught up in those conflicts, feels grander in scale than last year’s adventure, but no less detailed."

Total Film (at our sister site GamesRadar+) calls Season 2 "A hell of a lot of fun despite being overcrowded and convoluted," with reviewer Lauren Milici saying "Cooper Howard and the Ghoul's separate storyline merge into something deeply satisfying," though "the cuts back to the [Vault 31-33] feel like more of an interruption from the main storyline."

Endgadet says Fallout Season 2 "continues to be a prime example of how to make the jump from pixels to TV screens look good," with reviewer Sam Rutherford saying, "After seeing The Last of Us stumble a bit during its second tour, I might even go so far as to say that Fallout is the best live-action video game crossover to date."

Polygon's Jake Kleinman was less positive, saying "Fallout seems to be spinning its wheels, without a clear direction for its many characters." The review is unscored, but Kleinman says "Fallout risks going down the same path" as a show like Westworld, which suffered in later seasons because "the world got bigger, but the story got more generic."

Gizmodo notes that the pace of the show is slower, but the writing is smarter: "The sophomore season of Prime Video's smash-hit gaming adaptation doesn't fix what isn't broken, for better and occasionally worse," says reviewer James Whitbrook. "But while Fallout does find plenty to chew on as it explores most of its cast more deeply this season, it often takes its time doing so to a degree that almost threatens to stretch its pacing a little too laboriously."

Among non-gaming sites, the reviews were still mostly positive, though some found the expanded scope of the show a bit too sprawling:

Variety: "While Season 2 isn’t as structurally tight as the first one was, the secrets and revelations unveiled here will keep viewers glued to their screens. As human beings, we are continually faced with challenging decisions, and in Fallout, the consequences of those choices, ours and others, have never been so poignant."

USA Today: "There should be more shows like Fallout, pure adventures that don't get bogged down in mythology (looking again at Stranger [Things] here) and never lose either depth of feeling or sense of fun. If you can stomach all the splattered guts and noseless monsters, you won't be disappointed by the enrapturing story the series is starting to unwind."

IndieWire: "Fallout Season 2 too often prioritizes planning over payoffs. Showrunners Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner steadily unveil more territories, mores clans, and more characters across their vast, open-world landscape, but to do so, they constantly pivot from one loosely connected plot to the next, stranding characters in slow-moving arcs destined to come crashing together sometime in the (fairly distant) future."

SlashFilm: "If you're not familiar with the games and the hints that the early episodes drop as to where this is all going, it may come across as unnecessarily convoluted, but it works because of how charming the characters are and because of how engrossing the world of Fallout is."

Collider: "Combining elements of action and adventure alongside darker themes of power and control feels like a feat similar to balancing a bunch of spinning plates, but Fallout Season 2 has made it work without them dropping (at least in the first six episodes)."