War is coming to New Vegas.

Everything we know about *Fallout *season 3 and what’s next for Lucy and the Ghoul

War is coming to New Vegas.

By Allison DeGrushe

Allison DeGrushe

Allison DeGrushe is a timely SEO writer at **. She has been working at * *since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Distractify.

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February 4, 2026 12:17 p.m. ET

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Ella Purnell as Lucy and Walton Goggins as The Ghoul in 'Fallout' season 2. Credit:

- *Fallout* season 2 is now streaming on Prime Video.

- The show was officially renewed for a third season in May 2025.

- The season 2 finale sets the stage for a war in New Vegas and a detour to Colorado.

Created by Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, the Emmy-winning *Fallout* debuted in April 2024 and quickly became one of Prime Video's most-streamed shows.

Season 2 of the post-apocalyptic action-drama arrived in December 2025, drawing heavily from *Fallout: New Vegas*, considered by many to be one of the video game franchise's best titles. It's the dilapidated New Vegas strip that beckons our heroes, as well as several bloodthirsty factions itching for dominance of the blasted surface of *Fallout*'s wasteland.

Walton Goggins, who stars as the hardened, flesh-rotted Ghoul, told ** that the cast and crew weren't afraid to take risks this time around. "What I did know is that if you can build a critical mass in chapter one of an experience, then you have an opportunity to do something transcendent in season 2," he explained. "And luckily for us, the people that create this show, the people that write it and direct it, decided to do that. And we, in front of the camera, we're all game for that. … I mean, let's take big swings."

With season 2 now behind us, viewers are already looking ahead to the future. Here's everything we know about what's next for *Fallout*.

Will there be a *Fallout *season 3?

Kumail Nanjiani as Xander Harness and Aaron Moten as Maximus in 'Fallout' season 2.

Lorenzo Sisti/Prime

In early May 2025, a few months before season 2 even premiered, Prime Video confirmed that *Fallout *was returning for a third season.

"We are absolutely thrilled that our global Prime Video customers will be able to delve deeper into the wonderfully surreal and captivating world of *Fallout*," Vernon Sanders, former head of TV at Amazon MGM Studios, said in a statement.

Executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy added, "We are thrilled to be ending the world all over again for a third season of *Fallout*. On behalf of our brilliant cast and crew, our showrunners Geneva and Graham, and our partners at Bethesda, we're grateful to our incredible collaborators at Amazon MGM Studios and to the amazing fans as we continue our adventures in the wasteland together."

How did Fallout season 2 end?

Kyle MacLachlan as Hank MacLean in 'Fallout' season 2.

The second season of *Fallout* introduced new factions — Caesar's Legion, the Great Khans — while shedding more light on the eugenicist goals of the Vault-Tec Corporation. Vault-Tec helped engineer the nuclear apocalypse in an effort to populate the world with genetically-controlled "super-managers," who they're breeding in the aforementioned vaults. The goal of the corporate string-pullers is to let the survivors on the surface kill themselves off, and to accelerate that however possible. When that's done, the vault dwellers can "reclaim" the surface as their own.

Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), the father of Lucy (Ella Purnell) and a former Vault-Tec employee, spends the season seeking an alternative to the utter destruction of the surface-dwellers, thought it's not that much more humane than war-mongering. Essentially, he's tweaked a mind-control implant previously utilized by Vault-Tec to strip away the memories of those who wear it while turning them into agreeable automatons. This essentially makes them slaves, but it also helps prevent all-out war.

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"The temptation of what her father is explaining to her, what he's doing and also what he's offering her — he's offering her this very sort of seductive idea of a new and reformed civilization that touches on what she was raised to believe in, which is reformation, but in a really, really messed up way," Purnell explained to EW. "But he knows her. So he's really calculating the way to present this idea to her in a way that's going to be very, very seductive."

Lucy, still burned by her father's lies, objects to his methods, destroying the mainframe he's worked to create. But it's too late. He's already unleashed an unknown number of surface dwellers implanted with chips that contain orders set for them "centuries ago." What that means, exactly, is still unclear, but it doesn't bode well for what's to come.

War, after all, is already coming to New Vegas, with the warring armies of the New California Republic (NCR) and Caesar's Legion both marching on the collapsed metropolis. Technocrat Robert House (Justin Theroux) is also there, his digital avatar having been activated by the Ghoul via the cold fusion diode.

With House's help, the Ghoul finally discovers the cryostasis pods of his wife and daughter in the bowels of New Vegas, only to find them empty. Left behind for him is a Colorado postcard, setting him on a mission for the Rockies with the hope of finding his family alive. Still, he carries with him an innate regret. As we learned in the back half of season 2, the Ghoul's spycraft in the pre-war times (when he was known as Cooper Howard) may have indirectly helped cause the apocalypse.

Finally, back in the vaults, Steph (Annabel O'Hagan) has been exposed to the rest of the vault dwellers as a relic of the pre-war times (and from Canada, no less). With a mutiny against the overseer brewing, she makes a call to the Enclave ordering the initiation of "Phase 2."

What will *Fallout *season 3 be about?

Kyle MacLachlan as Hank MacLean in 'Fallout' season 2.

There's no official synopsis for season 3 as of yet, but Howard recently told *Variety* that the writers are hard at work right now. "For us on the game and TV show side, we're writing season 3 now," he said. "We're having those conversations now of, what are we doing in season 3 for the TV show, and what elements can we bring into our games at that time when it comes out that don't feel forced or fake."

It seems likely that season 3 will follow the Ghoul to Colorado in search of his wife and daughter. Lucy and Maximus (Aaron Moten), meanwhile, may or may not link up with House as the Legion and NCR collide on the strip.

We'll also get a better idea of what Phase 2 is. We know it's connected to Vault-Tec's plans for world domination (and that it may be connected to something called the Forced Evolutionary Virus), but it's likely to answer a lot of questions about a heretofore unexplored threat to the wasteland. (Yes, we're talking about the Enclave.)

"In these later episodes, we're starting to hint at larger questions: Who is Hank working for? Does he work for Vault-Tec?" Robertson-Dworet told EW. "Increasingly, I would hope that fans are starting to wonder if that is ultimately who he's working for. And if he isn't, what is that larger presence? And how many of our storylines does it essentially infect? How many of our storylines are tied up in that larger villain story that we are slowly starting to hint at as a show?"**

Who’s in the *Fallout *season 3 cast?

Walton Goggins as The Ghoul in 'Fallout' season 2.

*Fallout* couldn't continue without Goggins, Purnell, and Moten, and it's also likely that we'll see the return of Theroux's House, Moisés Arias' vault-dweller Norm, and Macaulay Culkin's Legion striver Legate.

Purnell recently told EW* *that she's excited to see Lucy keep growing. "I would never want her to lose her comedy. It's my favorite thing about her. And no matter how experienced she becomes, I hope she doesn't lose a little bit of her naivety," she said. The actress also admitted she's rooting for Lucy and Max, saying she'd love to see them "try to work it out" because she ships them "hard."

Goggins, meanwhile, seems happy to stay in the *Fallout *world as long as it lasts. "We did something that is reaching across countries. It's breaking down those barriers and becoming something that people are sharing in," he shared with EW. "At this stage of my life, I'm grateful to be a part of it."

Though another year spent in the makeup chair to become The Ghoul might make him think twice…

When does *Fallout *season 3 come out?

Moises Arias as Norm MacLean and Rachel Marsh as Claudia in 'Fallout' season 2.

*Fallout *season 3 doesn't have a release date yet, but Nolan told IGN in December that the team is aiming to start filming in summer 2026. "We'll see if that all comes together, best laid plans, and all," he said. "But I'm excited that, though the scope of the show feels undiminished season on season … Geneva, and Graham, and our incredibly talented cast and crew were able to work quickly enough to get back on the air in a reasonable amount of time."

Nolan also pointed out that TV shows are "taking longer and longer" to release new seasons, which he thinks is a shame and is determined to avoid with *Fallout*. "You don't want the show to lose any of its scope, but we know that we'd like to be back on the air as soon as we can."

As for how it will roll out, Howard told *Variety *that season 3 will stick with a weekly release schedule, just like season 2. He added that while the approach has changed how fans watch the show, "it didn't affect the story we were telling."

Where can I watch Fallout?

Walton Goggins as The Ghoul and Ella Purnell as Lucy MacLean in 'Fallout' season 2.

Lorenzo Sisti / Prime

*Fallout *is available to stream on Prime Video.

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