Video game adaptations have a history filled with awkward misfires and “please pretend this never happened” moments. Yet somehow, Prime Video pulled off a proper win with Fallout’s first season. The series became a hit, fans loved Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, and Amazon immediately greenlit Fallout Season 2. Easy W for everyone. Except there’s one part of the fandom experience Goggins refuses to participate in: actually playing Fallout.
During a chat with PC Gamer, the 53-year-old star didn’t hesitate. He hasn’t touched any of the games. He doesn’t plan to. He isn’t curious. And he’s not shy about saying it.
His exact words: “No, I haven’t sat down to play the games, And I won’t. I won’t. I won’t play the games. I’m not interested. All of a sudden, I’m looking at this world from a very different perspective, and as something on a screen in which I am an avatar in. I don’t believe that I’m an avatar. I believe The Ghoul exists in the world. I believe that Cooper Howard exists in the world.”
So Goggins isn’t about to stroll through the Wasteland collecting bottle caps or VATS-head-shotting raiders. He wants to live inside The Ghoul’s cracked skin, not stare at polygons that kind of look like him.
Maybe if he spent a weekend blasting ghouls with a Fat Man launcher, Cooper Howard might start feeling like a video game skin instead of a broken cowboy who’s been walking the desert for 200 years. You hired Walton Goggins to bring existential crisis energy, not chase side quests.
Meanwhile, co-star Ella Purnell jumped into Fallout 4 and apparently has more games lined up. Different strokes.
But whatever Goggins is doing is working. His performance is one of the big reasons fans demanded more. And more is coming soon.
Fallout Season 2 premieres on December 17, 2025, so you’ve got a little time to replay the games… or follow Walton Goggins’ lead and pretend the video games don’t exist.
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