Everyone’s excited for the end of the world, if 2024 pre-war numbers are anything to go by. Thanks to the massive success of Amazon Prime’s Fallout series, the love for the series is at an all-time high, With a fresh rating of 93% on critic aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the franchise is seeing a big bump across all titles from its original iteration from Interplay to the little multiplayer that could, Fallout 76. In fact, according to Bethesda in a series of social media posts, the Fallout franchise from the first to the latest saw 5 million players across all titles, with one million of those players being from 76 alone. At this point, it’s unclear if Amazon Prime should be thanking Bethesda, or if it should be the other way around.

Read More: Preparing Yourself For The California Wastelands as Amazon Prime’s Fallout Premieres April 11

With all the attention the TV show has gathered, it could be very easy to just hand-wave anything off that posed difficulty to work into the lore of the games. But Todd “It Just Works” Howard has officially stamped the series with the Lore Hammer, meaning that the universe of the games and the universe of the TV show are one and the same. This wasn’t too difficult for the show, as it’s sitting at the latest point in the known timeline; however, this means that any upcoming titles are going to have to take into consideration the lore of the TV show as well. Fallout 76 already took the prequel route, occurring only 25 years after the notorious day the bombs dropped and nuked the world to hell and back, so it’s unlikely that Bethesda would go for that option again. Fortunately, since it could be a full nuclear winter or two before the likes of a Fallout 5 emerges, it leaves plenty of time for wild speculation. With that being said, here are five things that the next offering in the Fallout video game franchise will have to contend with, thanks to Amazon Prime mucking about.

PLEASE NOTE: War… war never changes. Neither do spoilers for the TV show and the games. Consider this a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. warning.

Fallout 5 Will Have 5 Major Plot Lines to Deal With

VAULT 31

Vault-Tec has been in the world of Fallout as long as Fallout has existed, and while a few of their vaults were actually designed to do what they were supposed to do – protect humanity from nuclear war – most were full of dirty deeds. From examining what happens when human beings are exposed to mass amounts of radiation (HINT: bad things) to cleaning up a bunch of people addicted to chems for a few years then unleashing surprise drugs to literal human sacrifice, the brains behind Vault-Tec were not exactly holy rollers.

Those brains, along with the fleshy meat puppets they owned, did turn into pickled people as seen in the end of the TV show, as it was found that the Management were housed in life-preserving tubes in the recesses of Vault 31; when neighboring Vault 33 needed a new Overseer, they just pumped out one of the Management from 31 and shuffled them over to 33. That means that Hank MacLean, Betty Pearson, and the rest of the heads of Vault-Tec are not only dangerous pre-War, but post-War as well. Could Bethesda “prepare for the future” by loading in a perfectly preserved antagonist? With active elements surviving to 2296, it ensures that Vault-Tec will always be a nefarious faction in future games.

WHO SHOT FIRST?

Now for a hot take that will get everyone up in arms, because as of yet, there’s no right answer: who pushed the big red button first?

I repeat: as of yet there is no right answer. Yes, we saw Vault-Tec leading a meeting – a sinister cabal, if you will – of other significant corporations in the pre-War days, including WestTek, Big MT, and RobCo, complete with a pre-raisin Robert House. And yes, we saw Barb Howard, a high-ranking muckity-muck in the Vault-Tec family suggesting the idea that maybe Vault-Tec should get the party started. However, akin to the comic book rule that if we don’t visually see a corpse that character is likely not dead somehow, we did not see anyone from Vault-Tec push a big red button. So aside from adding a new option to the “Who Shot First?” conundrum, no questions were actually answered, leaving that answer to (maybe) be discovered in the continuation of the gaming saga.

YELLOW VIALS

When Lucy manages to free herself from the shady human-trafficking business deal the Ghoul had her be product for, the Ghoul helps himself to a box full of yellow vials reminiscent of the chems the Ghoul did in an inhaler in episode 2. At first, all of us lore nerds figured it was Jet, one of the most famous (and infamous) chems from the franchise. However, it turns out these vials are vital to keeping a Ghoul from going feral. We don’t know what it’s called or its origin, but someone will have to deal with this new piece of ghoul lore, and fast. More than likely, it’ll have to be handled in season two of the Amazon Prime TV show, which means when Fallout 5 (or whatever comes along next) launches it will not only have to reconcile how this mysterious, Zombrex-from-Dead Rising 2 knockoff is made and how it works in the irradiated body, but how it winds up in wherever the next locale is from its only known location in canon, which is at one single Super Duper Mart near the ruins of Shady Sands.

Wonder if Chuck Greene has spent any time in New Vegas. He seems like the Gomorrah type.

HOW DID THE BROTHERHOOD GET SO BEEFY ON THE WEST COAST?

Meanwhile, when we left the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout: New Vegas, the Brotherhood of Steel were hiding in some underground bunkers in Hidden Valley. At the very best, a truce can be struck between the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel and the New California Republic, depending on Courier Six’s choices in the game. Otherwise, they’re stuck still in those bunkers, or worse, blown to high hell. Granted, a lot can happen in the nine years between Fallout: New Vegas and the TV show’s year of 2296. However, from a hidey-hole bunker or human bomb shrapnel to a dominant force in the Southern California Wasteland is a lot to take in.

Read More: Stardew Valley Achievements Guide (Steam)

Though it may be addressed in the next season, it may also be hand-waived away, leaving it up to the next game to explain how the Brotherhood of Steel on the West Coast went from zero to hero. Were troops transferred from Maxson and the East Coast chapters? If so, how do we not see the overarching xenophobia that characterizes the Commonwealth Brotherhood? Also, we now know how the Brotherhood of Steel presents in the Boston/D.C. areas and the So Cal/Vegas areas. What about the whole Midwest and the South? Do they even exist there? Are they worse? With as much apparent power as they now have, having won the battle at Griffith Observatory, there will have to be some explaining for the Elders to do.

COLD FUSION

And that battle for the Observatory was not for nothing: future games are going to have to address the fact that most of the remnants of Los Angeles are now being powered by cold fusion, the nuclear energy production that’s only a myth in our timeline. In the Fallout universe, not only did Vault-Tec manage to make cold fusion a reality, they had every intention to keep the knowledge for themselves, as demonstrated by the fact that in order to activate the magical MacGuffin everyone was after, a Vault-Tec employee had to use their employee ID and a code that only the Management locked away in Vault 31 knew.

Read More: Fallout 76 Atlantic City: America’s Playground Review

Now the secret’s out. Will Wasteland scientists be able to reverse-engineer more of these without codes? Will Vault-Tec re-obtain the power? And what will the Brotherhood of Steel do with it considering they control Griffith Observatory where the power rests? In the case of the next game entry, wherever it may be located, did cold fusion make its way to that location? (Side note: my vote is for Fallout 5 being located in New Orleans… imagine the night skies powered by cold fusion. It could well be possible Mardi Gras may be revived.) Wherever 5 lands on the map, how did cold fusion get there, if it did? A massive power supply like the discovery in Southern California would be coveted by every faction in every city. It will have to be a factor in the next game in the Fallout franchise.

It’s clear Bethesda will have plenty of time to come up with ideas – provided Microsoft doesn’t close the studio first.