Fallout NV: In which order to play the DLCs ?
 

Hoi there,

I`ve now bought all the DLCs available for Fallout: New Vegas. However I read that the order of release might not be the best order to play them DLCs storywise.
So my question to those who played the DLcs: Which Order would be the best to play the DLcs from a storywise point of view.
I don`t care for accumulating the best gear, power-gaming, etc…..

Cheers in advance
L.

Stories are not so tied in with the main plot. I've played all of them (except the last two which were released few days ago) in the release order and I was fine, you can enjoy them in any order you prefer. My two cents of course ;).

Release order.

DLC1-3 have subtle hints for DLC4 and DLC3 have content that expand on what happened in DLC1.

DLC1 (Dead Money) have some major flaws but is still strong in story. Half of the DLC can be very stressful though and feels like playing Silent Hill in it's brutal setting and difficulty. I would be at least level 20 before I would go there.
DLC2 (Honest Hearts) feels like playing an MMORPG. Beyond the great looking landscape, it's rather hollow.
DLC3 (Old World Blues) is unarguably the best DLC for fallout up to date and one of the best DLC's for any game as far as I concern (feels like a full-blown expansion that can be compared to General Knoxx for Borderlands or Gay Tony in GTA4 in size).
DLC4 (Lonesome Road) for all it's premise was a letdown for me, but at least it brought closure.

Of course they can be played in any order but it won't exactly make sense to have your power armored super soldier who is master of new vegas shooting mole rats for caps when the final battle for hoover dam is about to begin, or switching between pretty, lighthearted/funny dlcs and dark scary ones.

As far as story/sense goes HH should clearly be played first, LR last, OWB and DM are more debatable.

My order and the whys:

1st - Honest Hearts(dlc2) : about lv10+, easy difficulty, you are hired as a lowly caravan guard so it should be played when/while it makes sense to take such a job, very pretty and minimalistic low tech adventure, almost no relation to the other dlcs.

2nd - Old World Blues(dlc3): made for lv15+ , normal difficulty, makes sense to visit when you are exploring the wasteland in search of factions/useful technology, the big MT is a technological wonderland with funny and colorful characters and gives you a good home/hub/batcave and significant skills+perk boosts that are useful for the mojave wasteland so shouldn't be done late in the game, you find diaries that introduce you to the characters of the "overall dlc story arch" -> it seems they just left for DM's Sierra Madre.

3rd - Dead Money(dlc1): made for lv20+ , hard difficulty, can't bring items with you, will test your skills, casino heist- you might be looking for money to buy all the upgrades made available by OWB or looking for the characters whose diaries you read in OWB, Sierra Madre is an oppressive ghosttown, you find some of those story arch characters-> a nemesis is revealed, the end of Dead Money pretty much sets you up for the lonesome road.

4th - Lonesome Road(dlc4): made for lv25+, harder difficulty, bring good weapons, the divide is hell on earth, confrontation against the nemesis that had been built up with the previous dlcs(maybe best played when the game's main quest is near the end).

All of them: mediocre.

Dead Money contains story elements that are expanded upon in Old World Blues. I have no idea why you would change their order.

Old World Blues contains story elements that are expanded upon in Dead Money. I have no idea why you would change that order.

In OWB you find the diaries of some characters detailing their experiences in the big MT, these diaries then tell you they left OWB's Big MT for Dead Money's Sierra Madre. In Dead Money you actually get to find these characters and what happened to them after having left the Big MT. By playing OWB after DM we were reading events that happened prior to DM while DM set you up to go forward into LR, so why can't you learn of those events before playing DM?

Why would these characters' backgrounds from before the events of dead money and the details of the construction of the sierra madre have to be learned only after having gone to the sierra madre? Gameplaywise it makes more sense to go with OWB first and storywise the end of Dead Money is practically throwing you into LR.

What do you gain by following this story arch out of chronological order? You could play LR before OWB for those same reasons then.

OK Cheers a lot guys…..

I`ll probably go with the recommendations and play Honest Hearts first, then Old world blues, then Dead Money and then Lonesome road….

L.

What is the max level with all expansions? Is there a reason not to play the original game at first and then do all the DLC's in some random order? That's the way I did in F3 and it worked out very well.

Lvl 50. As opposed to Bethesda's litter of 6 year olds handling the writing, Obsidian's writers have actually put effort into the story and characters of FONV. The game's plot is actually interwoven with some of the DLC so that you would get more out of it if you did them in order or, at the very least, Dead Money before OWB and Lonesome Road last.

Ty for the reply. Also, do the companions level up? I was thinking of using Rex as a tank (or at least he seems better than ED-E).

Well you can't continue playing after you play through the original game, for one, the fact that some of the dlcs' stories/dialogs make no sense if played out of order, such as dead money and lonesome road, for two.

…nvm, in that case play them in whatever order you like then!

Why?

Their tagged skills level up.

the events in dead money definatively happen after certain characters have gone to Big MT. even if you do old world blues first then those events will have already happened. clearly then it makes no sense to do old world blues first as you can't change what happens in that regard and it makes all the allusions, in dead money to "the Big Emtpy" pointless and serves no point to entice you to visit.

The elements in OWB is presented as a background for what happened in Dead Money. You are meant to know what happens in Dead Money first to understand the stuff you find in OWB. You cannot change what happens in Dead Money because you played Old World Blues first.

Agree, the events you learn about in OWB foreshadow the events of DM and LR.

…come again? How does that clearly make sense? Why does the fact that you can't change the events that happened prior to a story mean that you should only learn of them after the story?

So by that bizarre logic you should also play Lonesome Road before Old World Blues since the events of LR definitely happen after the story elements of OWB and you can't change what happened before in OWB either.

How is that any different from the allusions to DM in OWB enticing you to visit DM? In fact OWB is only referred to as a techno wonderland in DM and christine at the end is telling you to go chase Ulysses(lonesome road), whereas in OWB you learn not only of the tech that exists in DM(holos), the casino(money?), and the characters you'll end up meeting there, OWB provides a much bigger enticement to go to DM than the other way around!

And the background should be presented after the story ends(at least for the DM characters) because…?

How? Because I sure don't see it.

How is that an argument for playing OWB after DM? Why don't you apply it to LR then?

you can see that we wholehearterdly disagree you but one word sums up why you should play dead money first—holorifle

also the allusion you find come in many different forms. both spoken in realtime and through logs. for instance you could use your logic and apply it in a loop to lonesome road--which clearly "ties things up in many ways" so it should obviously be played last. in lonesone road though you can have dialogue with ulysses where you learn things but also through his logs you can find, clearly though only after finding the logs does he comment back on them--logs are a record of the past and in that way finding them as relics after the fact is the most natural way for one to find and intake them. the logs therefore in old world blues are relics left by people you meet and interact with in dead money and therefore have more worth in that regard. all the emotions of making choices with those characters are infused with emotion based on your choices of the past not theres. if you do it the other way around it is true it could base your reactions in dead money on those logs but i guarantee that is probably a less truer response as the devs most assuredly wrote those logs after dead money which means there were intenteded to be reflective. but hey choice is cool and gamers having different experiences is good stuff.