dailynewsnblog
Fallout Season 2 ratings are down compared to the explosive debut of Season 1 – but there’s a good reason for that.
Information about how Bethesda and Amazon’s adaptation is faring during its second season comes from recently released Nielsen streaming stats (via The Hollywood Reporter). The numbers show Fallout drawing 794 million minutes watched between the week of December 15 – 21, 2025, with its premiere episode, The Innovator, arriving December 16. For comparison, Fallout Season 1 premiered to 2.9 billion minutes watched when it made its way to Prime Video in April 2024.
It’s the kind of downward trend that many may assume has Amazon shaking in its boots, but it’s far from the full picture. There’s one major point to consider: all eight episodes of Season 1 premiered on the same day, while Season 2 published just one episode at release. In other words, Prime Video subscribers had a lot of new content to sink their teeth into in 2024, so 794 million minutes watched for just one new episode to account for isn’t so bad.
In fact, Nielsen reports Fallout Season 2 Episode 1 accounted for 54% of the show’s watch time during the week of December 15 (Season 1 episodes accounted for the rest), so it’s easy to imagine that number getting an additional boost if more new episodes had dropped that same day. Even considering the weekly release strategy, Fallout still managed to be the only Prime Video show to land in Nielsen’s Top 10 Overall streaming ratings for minutes watched between December 15 – 21, coming in at number seven. That puts it well below Stranger Things at the number one spot with 2.38 billion minutes watched, but above Grey’s Anatomy, which is placed at 10 with 642 million minutes watched.
Stats for Fallout Season 2 Episodes 2 through 5 have yet to be published, with the show still very much in the middle of rolling out new episodes in its post-apocalyptic follow-up story every Wednesday. Episode 5, The Wrangler, premiered January 14, with three more set to follow January 21, January 28, and February 4.
It’s easy to look at the Fallout Season 2 ratings and assume the worst, but for now, it doesn’t look like the video game show is going anywhere. For more, you can check out IGN’s reviews for Episodes 2, 3, 4, and 5. You can also read about Prime Video’s recently announced Fallout Shelter reality competition series.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
