Fallout: NV - Why It's Famous for Freedom

Story Mode spoke to Studio Design Director Josh Sawyer and Lead Creative Designer John Gonzalez to explain why Fallout: New Vegas is famous for it's freedom.

loading…

In this video we talk to Studio Design Director Josh Sawyer and Lead Creative Designer John Gonzalez to explore why Fallout: New Vegas is famous for its freedom. In New Vegas you can go anywhere and be anything, yet the game still manages to tell a cohesive story. It accomplishes this by offering the player meaning choices and through the clever design of the reputation system.

More information.

One of my most favorite RPG games to play. To bad no one ever made another spin-off again. Probably never will but you never know with Microsoft owning Bethesda now.

Aye this was an awesome game. Would like to see more with this approach in general.

So to sum up the video. Player agency is important because with blank slate characters you can't have authorial control. Meaning you can kill anyone or sneak around and kill no-one, the player character will tend to be somewhere in-between. Also the choices you have got need to be impactful and interesting and reflected in your reputation with different factions.

Only played through it once and before the DLC and have been wanting to go again. What are the essential mods for this these days anyway?

Originally Posted by Pineapple Ferguson
Only played through it once and before the DLC and have been wanting to go again. What are the essential mods for this these days anyway?

Texture mods mostly as the game is dated without them.

NCR Rearmament - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/40139/?
Caesars New Regime - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/45557/?
Fallout Character Overhaul - https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/54460
New Vegas Redesigned 3 - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/56312/?
Goodsprings Reborn - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/50684/?
Novac Reborn - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/52581/?
Primm Reborn - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/50664/?
NPC Project - Freeside - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/44684/?
NPC Project - 188 Post - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/42449/?
NPC Project - Aerotech - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/42602/?
NPC Project - Bitter Springs - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/42555/?
Wasteland Flora Overhaul - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/39856/?
NCR Enhancement - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38651/?
The Couriers Cache - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/49531/?
Goodsprings Reborn - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/50684/?
Novac Reborn - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/52581/?
Primm Reborn - http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/50664/?
Texture pack by NeilMc_NMC - https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/43135

Also two good sized free expansions.

Fallout - New California - https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/45138/
Fallout - The Frontier - https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/68009

Good, solid game. Not as good as the first two, at least not for me, yet as the finale of the Fallout series, it worked for me. No, I don't count the online thing or the fourth game, neither measure up to franchise expectations.

And this reminds me that I'm due yet another revisit to this game soon!

I played it too late. When I tried it, it felt really bad in comparison to Fallout IV. Streets felt empty and totally unrealistic with so few NPCs, ugly graphic, battles that felt bugged with "stuck" enemies. I guess I would have enjoyed it a couple of years earlier.

I thought FO4 was a downgrade from NV in a lot of ways, especially the writing and dialogue.

Great Caesar's Ghost, JDR and I agreeing on something! /Faints! -p

Originally Posted by JDR13
I thought FO4 was a downgrade from NV in a lot of ways, especially the writing and dialogue.

That's certainly true but Fallout 4 was a major upgrade on gameplay, combat, graphics, immersion. First person 3D games from over 10 years ago haven't aged well.

Originally Posted by vanedor
That's certainly true but Fallout 4 was a major upgrade on gameplay, combat, graphics, immersion. First person 3D games from over 10 years ago haven't aged well.

Looking back over the past fifteen years it seems every new game from Bethesda improves another area, but ends up simplifying other parts of the new game.

I enjoyed Fallout 4 but hated the new dialogue interface and skill system.

Edit: I haven't played Fallout 76 as I hate games that require a server to a play, but it seems they upgraded the game-play & combat. To bad Fallout 5 is many years away.

Originally Posted by vanedor
That's certainly true but Fallout 4 was a major upgrade on gameplay, combat, graphics, immersion. First person 3D games from over 10 years ago haven't aged well.

How was it a major upgrade on gameplay or combat? There's not much difference between them in those aspects other than the additional layer of settlement building, and it's debatable how much that added to the game in a positive way.

I remember how I started to learn difference in guns because of Fallout NV and how quickly got into the game's story and immersion.
But now it is with salt of grain, beacause of what they did to players who cannot play games in first person with Outer Worlds and how they decided to betray them with Avowed aswell even with all the requests to add it.
even if there would be no motion sickness or disorientation - If you watch movies and it is story of someone else - do you watch it in first person or third person? and what it would do if you would switch that?
I mean it doesn't matter for a small company - they do only what they can, but if you are owned by Microsoft having all those speaches about being for consumer…
And you couldn't hurt those fans of Fallout NV and Obsidian more.

Personally never played a single newer Fallout or Elder Scroll game in third person much so no they betrayed nobody. I even enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 in First person.

While I liked NV, I often find it is overpraised. It almost feels as if someone said it's the best Fallout of all time, and then someone who didn't play it heard it and repeated it and it became kind of a meme that people repeat, which gains momentum the more people dig into recent Bethesda hate, as NV being a relic of olden times, before Bethesda sucked.

Having played it thoroughly, I can see a very good game, and that's the end of it. I couldn't point anything that makes NV better than say, Fallout 3, because in my opinion there isn't.

On to the article itself, the Freedom factor is important, and to me it's what makes Fallout games stand out as great RPGs. I wish more games were designed based on this trinity of concepts:

1. Let the player create their own protagonist.
2. Let the player choose their protagonist's skills and abilities.
3. Let the player affect or change the story and the shape of the game world.

The more you do of each, the better the RPG, in every case.

The less you do of each, the less you're allowing the players to play the game, and the more you're just telling them an interactive story, which can also be really fun, but it's a whole different ball game.

Sorry but I have to somewhat disagree with you. Sure Fallout NV is probably overpraised on most online sites, and despite all it's flaws it's rightfully deserved in my opinion.

Also it beats Fallout 3 in story and quests hands down. Many more memorable factions and NPC's. Bethesda should of taken lessons but as usual they didn't bother.

They wanted the game to fail and some documentary's show they weren't willing to help obsidian at all. They even screwed Obsidian out of bonus's due to metacritic scores.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Sorry but I have to somewhat disagree with you. Sure Fallout NV is probably overpraised on most online sites, and despite all it's flaws it's rightfully deserved in my opinion.

Also it beats Fallout 3 in story and quests hands down. Many more memorable factions and NPC's. Bethesda should of taken lessons but as usual they didn't bother.

They wanted the game to fail and some documentary's show they weren't willing to help obsidian at all. They even screwed Obsidian out of bonus's due to metacritic scores.

I think that's a fair opinion, really. I am not the biggest fan of Fallout games to start with, but I do enjoy the amount of player agency you get in those games. If it wasn't so heavy on the shooter side, I'd probably value it more.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Personally never played a single newer Fallout or Elder Scroll game in third person much so no they betrayed nobody. I even enjoyed Cyberpunk 2077 in First person.

I know a lot of players can do it, some even prefer that, because they play themselves and don't rp at all and Gopher is probably the example they take when they say that it doesn't matter for RP aswell, also for older gamers, who grew up on Daggerfall and Doom corridors will be used to it, but I just wish they would imagine the other side of the view.
I get it - it is their "creative freedom" but they don't have to do it themselves if they don't want to - Microsoft could hire smallers studio to add it as dlc.

Originally Posted by Nereida
While I liked NV, I often find it is overpraised. It almost feels as if someone said it's the best Fallout of all time, and then someone who didn't play it heard it and repeated it and it became kind of a meme that people repeat, which gains momentum the more people dig into recent Bethesda hate, as NV being a relic of olden times, before Bethesda sucked.

Having played it thoroughly, I can see a very good game, and that's the end of it. I couldn't point anything that makes NV better than say, Fallout 3, because in my opinion there isn't.

On to the article itself, the Freedom factor is important, and to me it's what makes Fallout games stand out as great RPGs. I wish more games were designed based on this trinity of concepts:

1. Let the player create their own protagonist.
2. Let the player choose their protagonist's skills and abilities.
3. Let the player affect or change the story and the shape of the game world.

The more you do of each, the better the RPG, in every case.

The less you do of each, the less you're allowing the players to play the game, and the more you're just telling them an interactive story, which can also be really fun, but it's a whole different ball game.

I agree that a lot of people around games blindly repeat what others said and it is very frustrating, because it can do a lot of harm one way or another. one reason is that I belive that is how our brain does operate - you hear something and create a reaction, once it is done, you cannot undone that. You will have positive attitude toward a praised game, so you will have tendency to overlook negatives and the opposite - if you hear someone nitpicking up something - like repetitive houses in Greedfall, you will see it everywhere even if it wouldn't be a problem in other game where nobody was talking about it. And ofcourse some groups can create directed waves which can destroy a good game or praise not so good.
Also people are very vulnerable to influences of their own state of mind - if you are tired, have desire to play themed game like western, have time or not…
So you can say that players liked FNV just because someone was praising it… Or maybe you just wasn't in the mood to play it, or maybe it was your reaction to praise where you was overhyped, expecting something different.
Maybe it was just a fitting, cool immersive game someone unbiased instantly fell in love with. You can say the same about Dragon age origin.

And I agree with the rest about RPG.