General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Fallout: Nuka Break

Fallout: Nuka Break is an American non-profit fan film and subsequent web series set in the post-apocalyptic world of the Fallout video game franchise, produced by the independent company Wayside Creations and released on YouTube beginning in January 2011. The original short film follows Twig, a former Vault 10 dweller searching the wasteland of eastern California for ice-cold Nuka Cola, accompanied by Ben, a radiation-ravaged ghoul, and Scarlett, a former slave with a bounty on her head.¹ Its enthusiastic reception led to a multi-season web series running from 2011 to 2013.²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Fan film (January 2011, over ten minutes long) expanded into a web series of 12 episodes across two seasons, 2011–2013³^•⁴
Production	Wayside Creations, a film production company formed in 2009 by Vince Talenti and Zack Finfrock; directed by Vincent Talenti⁵^•⁴
Main cast	Zack Finfrock as Twig, Tybee Diskin as Scar/Scarlett, Aaron Giles as Ben⁴
Setting	The Fallout universe, closely following the setting of Fallout: New Vegas; filming took place in Nevada, USA⁶
Funding	Non-profit and fan-funded, including Kickstarter campaigns; a June 2014 Kickstarter aimed to continue the series with a new installment²^•⁵
Viewership	2,873,316 YouTube views for the original film as of 25 March 2015, a Guinness World Record for most viewed fan film based on Fallout⁷
Reception	7.9/10 on IMDb from about 1,000 user ratings⁶

Spoilers

Characters and premise

The series follows a trio of misfit adventurers surviving in the wasteland. Twig is a clumsy ex-resident of Vault 10 whose greatest wish is to track down tasty Nuka Cola; Scarlett once was enslaved in New Vegas, carries a price on her head, and is quick to pull the trigger; and Ben is a rough-edged but kindhearted ghoul who is close to going feral. The group wanders the wasteland looking for work, getting double-crossed, fumbling through battles, and bickering among themselves.² The show is not canon to the games; it draws on the Fallout universe but is not part of the official storyline.¹³

The original short film

The project began when Zack Finfrock, an actor and artist who had moved to Los Angeles in 2008, developed a story with a collaborator and brought in his former roommates Julian Higgins and Vincent Talenti, along with producer Melanie Wagor. Finfrock has said that Fallout 3 drew him into the series and that he deliberately avoided using characters from the games so that viewers' individual playthroughs would not conflict with the story.⁸ The film was directed by Julian Higgins and Zack Finfrock, written by Brian Clevinger from a story by Finfrock, with cinematography, visual effects, and coloring by Aaron Scott Moorhead.¹

The short was released in January 2011 and was described by Slashfilm as a ten-minute-plus fan film with considerable attention to props, effects, and environmental detail, though the reviewer found the script more jokey than the core tone of the games.³ The film's own description states plainly that it is a non-profit fan film: "Please don't sue us. We don't have any money."¹

The web series

The short film proved popular enough that its producers raised funds to continue the story as a full web series.⁹ Fallout: Nuka Break the series premiered with its first episode in 2011, with new episodes released every second Monday.¹⁰ The series ran for two seasons of six episodes each, plus five specials between 2011 and 2013.¹¹

The writing expanded for the series: Brian Clevinger, known to listeners of the Nerdy Show network, wrote episodes and co-created the series with Zack Finfrock, and Chris Avellone of Obsidian Entertainment, a writer on the Fallout games, contributed the series bible.¹² Guest cast included Doug Jones as Mayor Connors and Vic Mignogna as the narrator.¹⁰^•⁶

Funding, spin-offs, and later projects

As a non-profit production, the series relied on community funding, described by its creators as made by Fallout fans and funded by Fallout fans.⁹ In 2013 the team produced Fallout: Nuka Break – Red Star, a 24-minute side story released through Machinima's "Machinima Prime" channel, following a lone wanderer known as the Ranger and using still-motion sequences styled after the games' Pip-Boy interface.¹⁴ A further Kickstarter launched in June 2014 was intended to fund a new installment giving more backstory to the Ranger character.⁵

The company's later history was troubled. In September 2016, four key members of Wayside Creations, including Finfrock, released a video describing internal strife at the company, and backers of the 2013 and 2014 Kickstarter campaigns had raised questions about the state of the projects after many months of silence.⁵ In 2024, thirteen years after the original film, Finfrock announced a new Fallout fan film, Fallout Breaking, continuing the journey of his character Twig.¹⁵

Reception and legacy

The series has been received as an unusually accomplished fan production. PC Gamer called it "an impressive accomplishment" and recommended it as free live-action Fallout viewing when the official Amazon Prime television series premiered in April 2024.² Kotaku's review of the first episode praised the production for securing Doug Jones as a guest star and described the original short as "surprisingly great."¹⁰ On IMDb the series holds a 7.9/10 rating from about 1,000 users, with two wins and two nominations in awards listed on the site.⁶ Guinness World Records certified the original film as the most viewed fan film based on Fallout, with 2,873,316 YouTube views as of 25 March 2015.⁷ The series remains available on YouTube and other video platforms.¹³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Genre web series: horror, thriller, science fiction, and mystery

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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