Fallout: New Vegas - Definitive Ending Explained

Dhruin

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1Up speaks to Josh Sawyer about Fallout: New Vegas having a fixed ending - like the original Fallout 3 design before the addition of the Broken Steel DLC. Here's part of Josh's response:
"We put a lot of effort into the ending slides -- we know those slides are really popular with people so we want to make sure there's a huge amount of variety and reactivity with that stuff. We weren't really focused on new features so much as to add a really rich sense of reactivity to the players and the choices they make."
We want to make it a definitive ending. Initially, we talked about trying to support post-game play, but because the changes that can happen at the end of the game are pretty major, this is what it basically came down to: either have the changes feel really major in the end slides and then have them not be very major after the end of the game, or make them really minor and not that impactful. And we feel it's better to say, 'you know what, we're just going to end the game, and the changes you made can be minor or really really big, but because we can't script all the changes to the Wasteland to let you keep playing, we're just going to stop it there.' But we do let the player know when that's about to happen-- a sort of, 'the end of the game is coming, so we're saving your game right now, so if you want to keep your game going, you can, otherwise, it's about to be over.'"
More information.
 
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I used to like this "post-game in an open-ended RPG" (mainly because I was such a huge fan of Morrowind), but now I really don't care anymore. In fact, I find it often more satisfying to wrap up everything I want to do and then finish the game in a very conclusive matter. Most of the things you do post-game have a smaller impact because, after all, you most likely saved the world after having finished the game. And if you want to make sure that all quests are still relevant after concluding the storyline, you'll most likely end up with quests that are less enjoyable because they probably won't tie into the game world/storyline as much.
 
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I'm glad they're doing it this way, it was really disappointing walking around in Fallout 2 after the ending in a world where nothing had changed.
 
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This makes sense to me. As long as you can delay the end so you can do what you want in the meantime.

After playing F3 through to the end, I have zero desire to play this new one. I even downloaded some add-on stuff for F3 and never got around to finishing it.
 
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I'm glad they're doing it this way, it was really disappointing walking around in Fallout 2 after the ending in a world where nothing had changed.

I don't remember being able to do that in Fallout 2. Did you mean Fallout 3?
 
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I don't remember being able to do that in Fallout 2. Did you mean Fallout 3?

No, you get put outside the tanker after the ending. As far I could tell the world didn't reflect the changes in the ending, everything seemed to be as it was before.
 
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No, you get put outside the tanker after the ending. As far I could tell the world didn't reflect the changes in the ending, everything seemed to be as it was before.

There are some easter eggs, but yeah, most of the world is completely unchanged.
 
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I enjoyed the open endedness you got in F3 and ME2 as long as there were decent DLC's that could be played right of the bat with my character without restarting the game.
 
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I'm a huge fan of the concept of open endings in RPGs, but only if the world actually changes according to the ending. I remembering feeling let down after checking various zones in MM6, finding no differences at all. An open ending is pointless in such cases.

In short: I'd rather wrap it up unless the ending changes the world.
 
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