The story behind Fallout: New Vegas goes a little something like this. After the Fallout franchise was acquired by Bethesda and successfully brought back to life with Fallout 3 in 2008, plans for a follow up quickly approached the horizon. They needed to cash in while the iron was hot, but Bethesda Game Studios were busy working on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim instead. So a team of former Interplay Production developers, who were originally the owners to the Fallout franchise until the studio went bankrupt, were brought together and given the task of making the next new Fallout game. That new studio being Obsidian Entertainment who you may know for working on such titles like Pillars of Eternity, The Outer Worlds, and Pentiment. There was a catch to this assignment though. They would be given full payment, potentially gain the rights to the Fallout series back, and work on all future entries if their critical reception for the game was higher than that of Fallout 3. It was a risky gamble, but Obsidian Entertainment agreed and got to work. You’d think they would manage to outsmart Bethesda, and they did! They made a Fallout game that paid respects to the original’s design philosophy while still maintaining the new modern formula. It managed to improve in every area Fallout 3 struggled in, and please the fans who were possibly disappointed. They made a smartly designed experience, but of course Bethesda had to come along and ruin it. They told Obsidian Entertainment they had less than two years to make the next Fallout, and they have to use the same engine that Fallout 3 ran on while also making a game larger in scope. This placed immense amounts of pressure on the devs, and even though they stayed focused during development to deliver greatness you can see there were a few rough edges. A lot of rough edges actually as New Vegas, their new Fallout game, came out with a slew of bugs at launch. With the PC version being unplayable.
The game was still v well praised, but it didn’t meet the requirements Bethesda made. Obsidian was given part of the payment they were promised for working on New Vegas, and prohibited from working on any future Fallout titles. We all saw how that went when Bethesda gutted all resemblance of a confident RPG where choices mattered in Fallout 4, and then reduced the series to a buggy unplayable live service hack job that is Fallout 76. It’s a big shame this had to happen to the franchise, and double shame for New Vegas for if you can overlook the bugs you would find what is the best entry in the franchise. New Vegas does so many things right and there’s a reason why people still talk about it to this day. It’s not just a good RPG, but a simulation that tests the player’s ability to make tough moral decisions and reevaluate their political stances and ideologies. It’s a game that could only be made by smart minds, and you can see a lot of the ideas from New Vegas carry over to Obsidian’s future work. I played Fallout: New Vegas for the first time four years ago. I remember loving it, but feeling like I missed out on a lot of things. I’ve been meaning to replay this game ever since, but I’ve been so busy playing other games and getting reviews for what I haven’t finished yet. I played Fallout 3 recently and I thought it was the perfect time to come back to New Vegas. I set aside some of the other games I was going to play and sank my teeth into the Mojave Wasteland once more. Fallout: New Vegas is better than the first time I played it, and it may as well be one of the best western RPGs I’ve ever played. It has easily become one of the top thirty games I’ve ever played, and that says a lot for a guy who has played over more than three hundred video games in his life.
Of course trying to explain why New Vegas is so good is difficult, because there are a lot of areas we have to cover. Yes, I know a lot of people have written essays on why New Vegas is great and I don’t want to repeat the same stuff all those other people have already said. It’s a game that has been covered to death, but I want to nail down the key reasons as to why this game is so beloved. Nothing new, but the main takeaways developers can take when designing an experience similar to it. Today we’re talking about why Fallout: New Vegas is a masterpiece almost 13 years later.
Putting The RP Back Into RPG (Player Role)
Classifying what video games are and aren’t RPGs nowadays is very hard. There’s no definitive answer, no defining characteristics of an RPG, and that's why so many of us are confused about what is and isn’t an RPG. A majority of people think RPGs are games with leveling systems and stats that gradually go higher as the game goes on. You level up stats in Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Elden Ring, so that must mean Horizon Zero Dawn counts as one because you slowly level up overtime and your stats go higher. Everyone thinks RPGs are games with turn based combat. Persona 5 is turn based, but would that also mean Into The Breach and Slay The Spire are RPGs too? RPGs are games where you get to forge a unique player character and their actions affect the world around them. I mean the RP in RPG stands for Role-Playing, but if that’s the definition we are following then it can be applied to every video game out there because everything you do will affect the story in some way because the writers need to have a story that pulls you along and says “hey, you are actually doing something.” Is there a rightful definition for RPG? No, and honestly I don’t really care. It’s a genre with no definitive definition and it’s a genre that can be anything it wants to be. In this case, we’re looking for an RPG where the player character plays an active role in the story and their actions will affect the world and characters around them.
When it comes to the Fallout series and the player character’s role it never really mattered in the past. Well, the series has attempted to make the player feel like a small part of a big scheme but it never done so successfully. Despite enjoying Fallout 3, I felt like my role in the main story didn’t matter until later on. You spend almost half the game looking for your father. Figuring out where he went, what he did, and the project he had been working towards. The story of Fallout 3 is not about the main character and more about your father. It’s not until your father dies that the plot can swap over to being just about the protagonist and the heroic deeds they may or may not end up doing. I’m fine with this, because the Fallout series is less about who you are and more about the places you go and the adventures you go on. However, I really wished your character was actually unique or that they weren’t being railroaded to follow the story of another character. This problem was fixed in New Vegas with the backstory of the main character and the mystery of the main story. In New Vegas you follow a courier who works for the Mojave Express and was tasked with delivering a special package. You get ambushed during your delivery and the man who led the ambush steals what you were delivering, a shining casino chip. He then proceeds to shoot you in the head hoping you would never leak out what happened. Luckily, you manage to survive the headshot and are revived in the far southwest town of Goodsprings. Your new task is to locate the man who shot you and recover the delivery item he stole.
There’s a lot of interesting things to ask from this intro. Who was the man who shot you? What was so important about the casino chip he was carrying? Who were the men who were escorting him and why did he refer to them as Khans? What is your role in this and how is your journey to find him going to play out in the long run? New Vegas doesn’t have a detailed introduction that shows the backstory of the main character like in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, but by doing so gift the player the ability to use their imagination to conduct a story of their own.Your player character has no personality, but you get to imagine what they are possibly thinking. The many dialogue options you are given convey different emotions, giving you more choice on who your character is. It also helps that none of the things you say are voiced, so you get to imagine how your character is saying them. Compare that to Fallout 4, and while I do think the voice actors are quite talented I also think the way they say things doesn't always represent what the player is thinking. Maybe you are a peaceful individual who tries to reason with everyone they see. How about a logical person who tries to outsmart their foes or use their own arguments against them. Maybe you’re just a psychopath and want to get out of every problem using guns and violence. It's an RPG, do what you want because you have the ability to role play your own character.
As the player progresses even further they discover a great war is about to happen. The battle will be between the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion, and whomever wins the battle will rule the Mojave. The player, depending on their actions, gets to decide what sort of government gets to rule the world. They have to put thought into what quests they partake in, who they help, and carefully analyze what form of government is right for the people. You are playing an active role in the story, and your actions actually matter. Who knew that by trusting the player with info they get to create a more engaging story. Speaking of, we might as well talk about moral choice and the many dilemmas you encounter throughout the game….
Why Consequences Matter (Moral Choices)
I’ve complained about this numerous times in the past, but moral choices in video games tend to teeter between the line of great and “wow, this could have been done a lot better.” The problem usually being the consequences and outcomes of your actions, and they are applied to the story and the rest of the game. If you are making a game about choice then said choices must have consequences, because if there are no consequences then the player is never held accountable for anything they do. Their actions feel less impactful and after a while they stop caring about what they are doing, because something will justify what they do or the game just never brings it up into conversation. Fallout 3 somewhat has this problem, but most of the time it was easy to see what was the right and wrong answer. Fallout 4 meanwhile especially had this problem, because almost every quest in the game outside the main story were yes or no trials. Where the positive outcome was made obvious and everyone gravitated towards it, because there was no reason to choose the other option if it was obviously made to be the worse one with nothing to take away. New Vegas fixes by having something we like to call “good writing.” Where even the simplest of problems are given added layers of depth and none of the answers provided are right nor wrong. Every single quest in Fallout: New Vegas tests the player’s ability to choose, and while there’s a lot to choose from I’ve decided to pinpoint it to one specific quest. The one a lot of players have possibly done because it’s on their way to New Vegas, the power plant.
Players will come across a peculiar power plant laying out in the open, HELIOS One, and if they can convince the NCR soldiers stationed outside to let them in they are given the task to power the station back up. Simple enough as the player navigates their way through the plant, fights a few robots, and activates a few pieces of machinery. While working their way towards their goal the player is told of the many places they can direct the remaining power to. Camp Macaraan is one of many places as it’s an outpost heavily populated by NCR soldiers and scientists. You could give them the power to conduct more research and get more duties done as the upcoming war approaches. However, you also have the ability to send the power to Freeside where small independent factions like The Followers of The Apocalypse are stationed. The Followers are basically the pharmacists and apothecaries of the wasteland. Using pre-war knowledge and tech to help those in need and patch up their wounds. They don’t have the resources, numbers, and funding the NCR or Legion have, but giving them power they could use to help more people without having to charge them or put a limit is great. The third option is to evenly divide the power amongst both regions, but there’s a catch. While both the NCR and The Followers get a little bit of power to work with, it’s not enough for them to actually do anything with it.
Your intention to help as many people as possible may end up hurting them in the long run. You are forced to decide which of two factions you want to help, and your political stance may further affect who you may want to side with. If you want to help the NCR in the future you may send the power mainly to Camp Mccarran, or if you are going for an independent Mojave or one of the other two major factions you may choose one of the other options. There’s even a fourth, selfish option. If players manage to obtain a toy gun in Freeside they discover it’s a pre-war detector used to summon orbital strikes from a satellite called ARCHIMEDES. It’s one of the most powerful weapons in the game, if you divert power to anything else it’s gone for the rest of your run. You can even use it as a piece of evidence to help out with one of your companions’ quest lines later on. Each choice has a unique outcome and you have to carefully think it over before making the final decision. This isn’t even the most interesting quest in New Vegas, as there are plenty of others. If you visit Camp Mccarran, a scientist will ask you to retrieve some data from the abandoned Vault 22. A place full of toxic spores that transformed the residents into plant monsters. You are also told a team previously sent there never came back, and if locate one of the remaining scientists she says any data of how they created the spores must be deleted. On one hand you could collect the data so future scientists can learn of what happened and prevent it from happening again, but on the other hand who knows if it’ll backfire or they’ll use it against their foes as a biological weapon. Choosing what could possibly be right is hard, because every choice comes with a terrifying consequence and risks. Yet, this makes every single decision in New Vegas more meaningful. Choose who you want and who’ll be harmed.
Rewarding Investment (Speech Checks/Options)
In every Fallout game, besides Fallout 4 because they gutted the RPG mechanics, every time you level up you are given the ability to invest a handful of points into one of many stats. These categories include Speech, Science, Medicine, Repair, Barter, Guns, and much more. Each stat category affects certain abilities like Science affecting what terminals you can interact with, or Medicine affecting the efficiency of healing items and drugs. The basics of survival, but it never really felt like you were rewarded for investing in certain stats and forging a unique build. Every stat seemed to serve one or two purposes, and they were really used to solve any problems. The only problem I can think of in Fallout 3 that can be solved using a unique stat was one of the starting quests in Megaton. There’s a nuclear bomb in the middle of the town and everyone lives in fear that it’ll go off one day. If the play has a high enough investment into Explosives then they can disarm the bomb. The bomb can also be used to blow up the town for evil people, but the fact there’s a reward for investing into what is a pretty useless skill early on due to how rare grenades and explosive weapons are is great. Outside of that there’s nothing else, but New Vegas comes back around to show us investing in certain skills can be rather helpful. By either opening up new ways to solve problems or importantly fixing the series’ biggest flaw, speech checks.
Speech is one of the most important stats in the Fallout series as it can be used to make counter arguments while talking to NPCs. The more points poured into Speech the more likely a player will succeed. This is a problem. It’s either Speech will make you win at every conversation in the game, or in the case of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 you can just reload a save and keep trying until you get a good outcome because speech checks are determined by dice rolls. Fallout: New Vegas fixes this, and I hate how I have to keep saying this phrase. While the Speech stat is still used to argue in most conversations, other stats can get involved as well depending on what person you are talking to and the argument at hand. The opening town, Goodsprings, has a quest to perfectly demonstrate this. You need to gather up the residents to help you fight against Powder Gangers, a raider gang who uses dynamite to blow up those who stand against them. The town residents will help you, but you can get some extra equipment from them if you can convince them. There are two NPCs and both of them sell really good weapons early in the game. However, they require either a high enough investment into Explosives or Barter. You need to convince Dynamite Pete you won’t blow your legs off if he lends you his explosives, and you need to convince the gun seller that giving you a free highly expensive gun that can be sold to someone else is a good idea. If you don’t have enough points in a stat then you won’t pass the skill check, and while I can see players getting pissed off from being locked out of a choice this further rewards investment into certain skills. Winning future conversations because you specialized in specific fields is great, and it helps add a sense you are creating a unique character. It’s just great knowing things aren’t being mainly decided through chance. The only game I can think of where RNG dice rolls were fun is Disco Elysium, but that’s because the story of that game taught the player failure is fine.
Stats also serve more purpose outside of speech checks and basic skills. Medicine, which is a stat I heavily invested in, can be used to heal injured NPCs or perform autopsies. If you manage to find a minor faction known as The Boomers located in the northeast corner of the map, they’ll ask you to help patch up some of their injured civilians. If you have a high enough investment into Medicine you can heal all of the patients and become more likable to The Boomers. There’s a quest where a group of religious ghouls want to blast off into space to find a new home, but upon investigating further you discover the rockets they are traveling on are destined to crash. With a high enough investment into Science you can correct the coordinates for the rockets and send them to where they need to go. One quest I do like involves Jacobstown, a town nestled in the mountains and inhabited by peaceful Super Mutants. You’re trying to help Doctor Henry find a cure to the Nightkins’ schizophrenia. Nightkin being a special variant of Super Mutants being able to turn invisible at the cost of getting crazier. At the end of the quest you have to help Doctor Henry make a cure, but to do so you have to make your Nightkin rely heavily more on their stealth abilities. Doing so will make them more aggressive, but help make a cure in the future. However, if the player has enough knowledge and high enough Science they can find a work around. You get to save more lives because you were smart enough. Doesn’t that make sense instead of a single stat judging every single conversation and problem in the game!? There’s plenty of other scenarios that reward stat investment, but those are the main ones to me.
Get Further Than Edd Did (Difficulty and Progression)
A lot of players claim New Vegas is the most challenging among all the modern Fallout games, but for good reason. Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and every single Bethesda open world title like Skyrim use a little something called “level scaling.” Where the difficulty, health, and damage of enemies are scaled to match the power of the player. The more the player levels up then the higher the enemies scale. It’s fine if you are making an open world where you can go anywhere at any time, but after a while the difficulty and challenge becomes stale. Nothing is ever too hard or too easy, and the threat of navigating the wasteland alone is lost. New Vegas does not use level scaling, and that’s why it’s the most punishing one. Wandering off aimlessly will get you killed, or going into a heavily occupied area under equipped is suicidal. It’s tough, but for good reasons. What do you do when you are under equipped and the enemies you face keep blowing you up? You look for more gear. Check your surroundings, loot more often, and decide what encounters you can and cannot handle. My first playthrough of New Vegas was rough because I thought I could use the starting equipment for the whole game, and continue looting bullets out of ammo containers and bodies like in Fallout 4. Second playthrough was much easier, because I took the time to check my surroundings and loot what I needed. I was stockpiled on ammo by the end of the game, but just because I had a ton of ammo didn’t mean I was invincible. Enemies will cut you down very quickly, so you have to make every bullet count and shoot them where it hurts most. I argued in my original review that combat wasn’t good in New Vegas, but upon replaying I came to really like it. I played New Vegas more like a tactical shooter rather than a hardcore FPS, and it was nice because I felt more thrilled by enemy encounters. Coming out barely alive, patching up my wounds, and reloading my guns just in case something were to attack me soon. I played carefully and was rewarded for doing so.
Unpopular opinion, but I feel like New Vegas is really linear at first. However, it’s not terrible and there’s a really good sense of progression. The quickest way to New Vegas is taking the road just north of Goodspring. All seems well, but you come across a quarry infested with numerous Deathclaws. These demonic looking mutants who will tear you to shreds within a few slashes. You can attempt to outrun or rake together enough early game equipment to kill them, but doing so is really hard or will take many attempts. Instead you go the long route. In fact, the game does whatever it can to make sure you go the long route by having NPCs tell you the last town your killer was in. You journey east, discover more townships, and eventually make your way to the bustling New Vegas. However, it’s better that way as you become well accustomed with the world. You get to understand how the universe works, the people surviving in it, and by helping them you may gain the supplies needed to survive. You may even come across new companions, Veronica and Boone, and they can make combat much easier by defending you. You level up, loot better gear, and meet several factions. It feels satisfying and what makes it even better is that you don’t have to use a quest marker to get to all the major towns in the game. Someone pointed this out, but the roads are the most important traveling tool in New Vegas. Just stick to them and you’ll be safe. Most of the dangerous enemies are usually lying out in fields, but stick to the roads and you will never get lost. I like this. You are still necessarily following a dotted line or a maker on the radar like a majority of open world games, but it’s better to have the player absorb the world around them rather than tug them by the hand.
Intelligence Higher Than One (Writing and Politics)
If you don’t know, there are three main political factions in New Vegas. The NCR, The Legion, and Mr. House. There are four possibilities where you pick a side, and one of three factions will rightfully rule the Mojave or you can rule it independently. Each political faction has their own beliefs and ideologies, but what makes them work is that they are all flawed. They have a ton of problems and they all know what flaws the competing side has, but none of them want to go and acknowledge their own. The NCR is the closest thing you will get to an American government in the Mojave. Defend the people and the people contribute back. However, they are not very good at their jobs. The territories they guard are understaffed, poorly managed, and overrun by like three to four groups of raiders. They have the weaponry to take on enemies, but they don’t do anything unless they are given the command. It shows how leadership has fallen apart and they have to be told what to do, and it’s even discussed later on in the game. Their previous president was a confident woman whom no one opposed and under her everything was great, but when she died of old age everyone panicked. I think what’s worse is that the NCR are kind of a nuisance to everyone around them. Taking other people’s work and using it for their own personal gain. They just want the land, and with Jacobstown as I mentioned earlier they even hire mercenaries to attempt to chase out the inhabitants of the town. Which goes to show they are too cowardly to handle problems themselves and would instead harass individuals through other means.
Caesar’s Legion on the other hand is a hardcore dictatorship. One man rules all and no one gets a voice in anything. Anyone who opposes him and his form of government is either demolished, crucified, or turned into a slave. You can gain his trust by rising in the ranks and being promoted to an honorable position, but it takes a lot of hard work. You eventually learn that the Legion have absorbed other tribes like the Great Khans, but they manage to wipe out their identities. There is a quest where you have convinced the Great Khans working for the Legion will bring upon their deaths, and you can either have them fight against them or leave the Mojave before they are killed by the NCR. It’s a terrible government to live under, but what makes the Legion surprising is how well organized they are. Their leader discovered a bunch of books and tomes talking about ancient Roman civilization. How, despite their many problems, the Roman Empire managed to last for a very long time due to their government, army, and conquest. They knew how to get things done despite limitations, and could easily wipe out the NCR thanks to their almighty general Laneus Legate. This fierce man who hides behind a gold mask, bears a stern voice, and the only thing he was ever taught was to win. To never let the enemy get the best of them. Laneus is terrifying, and when you face him during the final battle it takes a lot to convince him that what he is fighting for isn’t worth it. His mind has become so warped that he cannot show a single emotion or think of anything else because of what Caeser may do to him. For he was already punished before when his tribe was conquered, and the previous Legate was burned alive and tossed into a canyon when he came back to Caesar in failure.
There’s Mr. House and honestly I don’t know much about him. Everyone says his form of rule is basically fascism, which isn’t good but could be inaccurate seeing how vague of a description that is. What I've experienced is that he basically believes in capitalism. He wants to create a New Vegas driven by economy and perseverence, but that's kind of hard since there are two major political factions causing disturbances across all trade routes. So he sends you out to clean up the mess, and along the way he tells you of the old world and what you can do to make wasteland more like it. The last route is going independent. Telling the people to stand for themselves and helping all the smaller factions of the game. It’s the most peaceful ending amongst all the four, but I don’t know if I would say it’s the right one. With no government there are no rules, and the Mojave is more prone to outside attacks. You do have a Securitron army guided by Yes Man who helps you look over the land, but is that really enough? What if someone manages to make a weapon made to cut Securitrons down easily? What happens when you are outnumbered and the smiling robot is not enough to defend you? What will become of the people when disaster strikes yet again? These are all possibilities, but independence may not be the best option. The politics are smart in that you could argue about them for hours. People still debate what is the right option to this day and I think that’s one of the many key reasons as to why New Vegas is so memorable. You have a game that challenges the ideologies you believe in, and occasionally makes you question and go against them. A game this philosophical is genius in my opinion.
Nothing Falls To Chance (The Final Battle)
The ending to New Vegas is an accumulation of everything they did throughout the game. Every single faction and individual the player decided to help out will contribute to the end battle. The battle of Hoover Dam and the one who rightfully rules the Mojave Wasteland. Four factions will be willing to help during the end battle if you do their questlines, and all of which are really fun to work through as you slowly gain their trust. The Great Khans will suicide bomb your foes if you manage to convince them to abandon the Legion and remain in the Mojave to fight by your side. The Boomers will bomb anyone on the dam if you manage to hoist out the pre-war bomber they asked from you. Then there’s the Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel who have been written uniquely in this game. Unlike previous Fallout games, the Brotherhood of Steel aren’t the main heroes who’ll save the wasteland from disaster. Instead they hide underground waiting for the time to strike. Preserving what they know, have learned, and trying to play it safe. The Enclave on the other hand has completely dissolved since the events of Fallout 3. Hiding their past identities and the only way you can know they worked for the Enclave is by partaking in one of your companions’ questlines. In fact, there are two companion quest lines that involve these two factions and they involve my two favorite characters in this game, Veronica and Arcade Gannon.
Veronica was a former member of the Brotherhood of Steel. Her parents died during duty, but those around her raised her to be who she is now. She eventually left because she disagreed with the Brotherhood’s many beliefs and thought secluding themselves to the underground will soon bring upon their doom. You can help her gather evidence to show the Brotherhood won’t last longer if they keep following their ideals, but it’s ultimately for nothing as the high command dismisses her. Your work to help her endeavors was for nothing, and you get to help her make a choice of whether she stays with the only family she had or leaves to live on her own. Why am I bringing this up and how does this relate to the final battle? It doesn’t, I just thought it would be nice to bring up. You do get Power Armor training if you do the Brotherhood’s questline, and it can be especially helpful during the final fight where bullets are firing everywhere. Power Armor is some of the best gear you can obtain in Fallout. It offers a lot of protection and increases your attack power, but you can’t use it unless you are trained how to use it. The people who can teach you how to use Power Armor often won't give it to you easily, and you have to gain it by doing them favors. You unlock Power Armor late into the game, but it’s an epic endgame reward for those willing to pursue it. I really hate how Fallout 4 handled where they give it to you instantly and demonstrate how broken it is by letting you tear about foes easily. It also doesn’t help how Power Cores become easy to find and repairing armor pieces doesn’t really take much.
Arcade Gannon became a member of the Followers of The Apocalypse, but spent enough time with him and he reveals he used to be part of the Enclave. He never agreed with what they did, but he states that there were good people within it. People who disagreed much like him and wish to redeem themselves for all the terrible things the Enclave did in past games. You can locate the remnants, hold a meeting, and get them to fight at Hoover Dam. It’s epic and slowly Arcade accepts who he is and not let where he comes from define his actions. Anyways, the final battle is epic and the battle is over. The game plays a slideshow. Recollecting all the major towns and factions you’ve decided to help. Showcasing how your actions affected them in the long run and whether they lived happily ever after or not. Showing how your efforts to traverse across the world and help out all those you can pay off. The only other game I can think of that does stuff like this is Horizon Zero Dawn. Where NPCs you helped throughout the game will help you out during the final battle. In fact, John Gonzalez the lead writer for New Vegas was also the lead writer to Horizon Zero Dawn and I wouldn’t be surprised if he influenced elements of the final battle onto Horizon Zero Dawn. More games need to reward players for doing the side content. I want them to, because you get epic satisfying conclusions like the one in New Vegas.
You’ve Cheated Death Once Again (Conclusion)
Fallout: New Vegas is a timeless masterpiece. It’s been almost 13 years and nothing has managed to topple the genius of politics and writing. It’s the best in the series and it’s a game that manages to be fun no matter how many times you replay. There’s always something new to come across or a different choice to make to change the outcome of your journey. I don’t have any complaints for this game and if so it’s very minor. Graphically the game has aged quite a bit, and there’s still a good handful of bugs. Most notably the game crashes if you play it for too long or a bunch of stuff happens at once, but it’s nothing too bad. It didn’t happen constantly and honestly who plays a game for five hours straight? I played the game using the backwards compatibility of the Xbox One and it ran swimmingly, but if you have the PC version there’s a wonderful amount of mods you can download. Download fan made patches to fix the bugs and glitches, different guns, different questlines, overhauls to the combat, lighting and texture packs, new quests, and mods that make the game even harder. New Vegas is a perfect western RPG. It’s not one of my top 5 favorite RPGs, but it does deserve the title of being called one of the best. I have a massive amount of respect for it and Obsidian Entertainment, and I hope the studios’ future shines bright. This game is a pure 10/10 in my book. Do yourself a favor and play it already. It's like ten bucks on Steam which isn't a lot, and if you don't play on PC you can buy a Xbox 360 copy for twenty dollars and run it on an Xbox One or Xbox Series X. Those are the only two options I can think of, so I hope Bethesda will remaster if someday. The chances of a remaster happening have increased since Microsoft owns Bethesda and Obsidian Entertainment now, so let's hope they can reach a business deal and revamp one of the best games ever made.
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