So, did Fallout season 2 make your Fallout: New Vegas ending choice canon? Not quite. As it turns out, the finale makes good on its early promise by not taking sides.
Spoilers for the Fallout season 2 ending follow.
"It's good to be alive again. Over the years, my body became something of a target for wandering travelers with something to prove," House muses to the Ghoul after being rebooted in New Vegas. "I have been poisoned, shot, bludgeoned with a crowbar."
While the Ghoul quickly puts a stop to the trip down memory lane in his own unique fashion ("Shut the fuck up," he spits), there's plenty left hanging in the air for those curious about the Fallout TV show and how much it establishes a canon ending choice in Fallout: New Vegas.
Now, it's been a long, confusing, and winding road to get here. Previously, co-showrunner Geneva Robertson-Dworet told GamesRadar+ that Fallout would outright "avoid" confirming any New Vegas ending choices as canon.
House's re-emergence on his computer led many – myself included, admittedly – into thinking the House does always win and that New Vegas ended with remnants of the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion scattered to the winds. But that actually wasn't a cast-iron guarantee of anything, according to Robertson-Dworet.
"It did seem to us like a version of himself powered by cold fusion would be sort of the ultimate possible incarnation of Robert House," Robertson-Dworet later told EW, adding, "I've always seen it as something that allows for many players' experiences to have happened, but still Robert House had this other version of himself, that he was always ready to create and what he needed was the diode."
The narrative fog surrounding House's fate grows ever thicker with his brief finale admission. The references to being shot and bludgeoned are all possible options for the players (though, in the latter's case, it's with a golf club). His chamber can also be sterilized, leaving his physical body to wither and die.
Whatever the case may be – all and none of those options are on the table – it appears House was always waiting for the cold fusion diode to return to Lucky 38 regardless. That's his savior but, as he was only too keen to point out, there were plenty of other fates awaiting him before then. As Bethesda director Todd Howard succinctly put the question of canon in our recent chat with him, "I think it's good to open up those conversations, and you may get history, you may get conflicting reports on how some things went."
Fallout season 2 is now streaming, in full, on Prime Video. For more, check out our breakdowns of the Fallout season 2, episode 8 post-credits scene, plus there's a look ahead to Fallout season 3.
