Why Fallout: New Vegas is famous for its freedom 

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The first Fallout game I ever played! I remember my dad driving to work one day and he saw a big billboard advertisement of the NCR Ranger with his revolver. He took a picture on his phone and send it to my mom to show to me. Been obsessed with this game ever since!

I’ve played this game at least five times all the way through, and each time was like a different game. I played through quests I hadn’t seen before, had uniquely different dialogue with NPCs and companions each time, and was basically a completely different protagonist each play through. A couple of times I would come up with a backstory for my character before starting the game, and make choices that I think the character would make, not ones that I would make. My favorite game ever!!!

I'm interested in a New Vegas 2 only if John Gonzalez is part of the writing crew. My #1 game ever!

2 of the things I absolutely love in FNV: skill checks, and that the supermutants are all intelligent (some more, some less). It’s just so cool. Good luck to any members of Obsidian, they’re incredibly creative people.

17:24 "is this actually interesting?" "don't waste your time, don't waste your players' time" 17:37 "players don't just want choices; they want meaningful choices, they want consequential decisions." Every single word is a bitch slap to the face of FO4. Compared to FNV, FO4 is a first-/third-person shooter dungeon crawler + minecraft. Nothing wrong with being such a thing, it's still a great game, but just not "fallout" enough.

I remember this game being great, but I didn't realize how amazing it actually was now that I'm older and in comparison to even newer games. Now I have to replay it, damn it.

New Vegas was SO good at establishing trust that it later ruined me for the sequel. When I tried to back out of one faction's critical path by killing one of its members I wasn't allowed to; they were invincible and didn't respond to my hostile action. I got angry enough that I ultimately used a save from a dozen hours earlier just to avoid the outcome I had unknowingly locked myself into. It's a heck of an accomplishment that my expectation for that level of reactivity was still there despite it being a different game made by a different studio. Kudos to ropekid and the New Vegas team.

"Player-shaped hole" makes me think of the Junji Ito story where the one dude is like, "This is my hole!" and he climbs into a hole in a rock face.

The hype! My all time favorite game and the freedom and how you as a player affect the story is why I return to it! I also write for TTRPGs and New Vegas has taught me so much when it comes to storytelling in that medium.

The thing about New Vegas is... the courier isn't infantilized. In Fo3, you're a teenager with no precious experience with the wasteland looking for daddy. In Fo4 you're a veteran or a lawyer with... no previous experience with the wasteland looking for... sonny boy. The courier has been in the wasteland all or most of his/her life but still manages to have a more vague backstory that makes him or her being a malleable character incredibly believable. But also... the courier has a backstory or at least can have one through dialogue options. This makes the character incredibly intriguing because while you can effectively attribute to the courier whatever past you like, there's still crumbs of information that wouldn't be hard to fit into whatever narrative you'd like for your character. It's not just your actions being impactful, it's your actions being BELIVEABLE. Wanna be a madman? Well, your brain might be a little scrambled after two gunshots. Wanna be a good guy? Well, you're a drifter and you've been around so maybe you could just be looking for a place to call home or to do something that matters to the world. Wanna be a bad guy? You've been around for sure and the wastes are unkind so who'd blame you for trying to be cruel right back to the world? There's no answer that feels wrong or shoehorned in. The player characters in Fo3 and Fo4 almost feel like lost puppies sometimes with particular narrative responses feeling unreasonable even though you could argue that they're more of a blank slate than the courier for never having been in the wasteland until the start of their games. It isn't about being a blank slate, it's about being vague. The courier is vague enough to shape how you want but real enough... alive enough... to believe as a consequential character in the wasteland. And that's a hard balance to accomplish.

Would only want future Fallout games to include Josh and John.

One of my favorite bits of freedom given to the player is the fact that, if you're doing the wild card route, not only do you still have the option to blow up the securitron bunker like with some of the other routes despite it being to your complete detriment, Obsidian even tied some of Yes Man's best dialogue to it.

One favorite New Vegas moment of mine occured when I was in Primm, I was tasked with saving the local sherrif (mainly because he had information that was important for the story)...unfortunately, in my attempt to be sneaky, I failed big time and the sherrif got killed in the crossfire. When I investigated the body, I found the information I needed in this digital notebook, so I was good to go. I then talked to the leader of the survivors of Primm and confessed that the sherrif didn't make it, which instantly put me on a new quest to find a new sherrif for the town. I immediately recognized at that point just how reactionary the game world was and how my actions will have consequences throughout the game, and it impressed me!

This game will only continue to grow in the eyes of gaming history, in my mind. Every time someone takes a hard look at it, something else incredible bubbles up. True GOAT material.

The courier is shroedingers player shaped hole, they both are and are not. They were a character that existed in the world before the events of the game that other characters knew. It's up to the player to decide how much through of a character they are through their interactions with NPCs that knew them, and how much they want to follow in their footsteps. It's really elegant because any deviation from the courier's "set" character can easily be explained by them having half their head blown off.

Watching this with a big iron on my hip.

Over a year of just play time I had just lost my mother where every single day was playing new vegas then sleeping, waking up To Shower, new vegas Repeating that every day For 2 damn years Yeah, new vegas kept me alive just as much as it trapped me

The one thing I wish every RPG dev would look at from this game is Caesar’s Legion’s arena. In most games, picking a female or male character is inconsequential aside from romance options or the VA. In New Vegas, it limits your choices in an engaging and immersive way. Caesar’s Legion doesn’t allow women to fight, so naturally, they don’t allow you to fight in the arena. It’s a small thing, and some would call it sexist, but it adds to the world and creates a consequence for the choice or character you made. Not many games, especially nowadays, would be bold enough to do that.

Their professionalism and deep understanding of the narrative intricacies of their game are quite impressive, no wonder they came up with a masterpiece.

I rewatched Hbomberguy's New Vegas video just yesterday so this was perfect timing.

I've played through it 15 times and it NEVER gets old

I binged all of these videos when I found them awhile back because the content is of superb quality. I NEARLY forgot this channel existed and then this masterpiece pops up. This is one of my top 5 GOAT game candidates and your respect and understanding of it makes me love it even more.

I'm still waiting for a game that comes close to Fallout New Vegas, I'm afraid I'll never play anything like that again

a pretty good feature in New Vegas is that if you kill a really important character like Caesar, the story of the game still continues like normal instead of making it unplayable to play

No matter how many rpg's I play...I always just want to come back to this one. Easily my favorite rpg ever and possibly fav game ever. Sawyer and his team are absolute legends for making this game in the timeframe they did.

That Josh Sawyer guy is pretty cool he should make a fallout game

Legendary game, still playing.

My all time favorite playthrough was rping as a traveling Doctor. I Never fired a bullet...Boone and I snuck around healing and fixing people's problems...it was such a vibe

New Vegas could become a TV series with almost the exact same script as the game and _not miss a beat_

17:28 perfectly explains my frustration with the endings of fallout 4

One thing I'm curious about is why the team very deliberately wrote the game to work around the "Player Shaped Hole" but then go the other way with Lonesome Road? What did they want to explore or have the player feel with the sudden shift to an authored character with history in New Vegas?

I first played Fallout 3 in 2012 and still love it. I finally gave in to the (years of) hype and got F:NV only a few months ago. I've played theough as a few different characters, but I know there is still at least 80% of the content I haven't seen yet because my range of playstyles is pretty narrow. For example, I keep trying to do a pure-evil Legion campaign, but end up at-best(worst?) a neutral mercenary. I just like being a hero - or at least helpful - more. *I* am the only limit to this game.

"Instead of NV being about the protagonist, it's about everything going on around the protagonist." That clicked something in my brain and made me realize the problem with 3 & 4 as their MCs have too detailed of a backstory for an RPG. In FO3, I can only see the LW either following in their father's steps and being a good-natured science geek or a rebellious teen with abandonment issues. In FO4, the male SS's background is fine as you can technically have any job in the army and he could've had a different career before he was drafted but the female SS is a lawyer for some reason. I can't really imagine her personality or hobbies being diverse because of it. Example: if I wanted to make a lady brawler that's angry all the time, how do I make a backstory with someone who's job requires you to be calm, intelligent, and basically a diplomat? It's almost as if Bethesda didn't expect anyone to play as the female character. Or at least play as her in a meaningful way. Don't get me wrong I love 3 & 4 to death and I'm one of the few people who enjoys 3 more than NV, but I can also see why they aren't truly RPGs.

this video should have, ALOT more views. Love this kind of videos, and the overall quality of these videos.

New Vegas feels alive with your interactions. While Fallout 4 looks alive.

your videos are so good, love them

Nice, got an interview with John Gonzalez. Maybe when the inevitable handing over of Fallout to Obsidian occurs (due to Bethesda's mismanagement of the property in the last 8 years), he will be open to making a return to the fold so we can have at least two of the most important original members on board. I think everyone involved should be salivating at just how much bank they would make with an announcement like that. I can't even think of a bigger hypothetical bombshell in the gaming universe.

Seeing how much cut content there is for this game it's such a shame that Bethesda didn't give them more time

If someone can let the people at Microsoft know this is how Fallout is suppose to be. That would be great!

Bethesda needs to study this video, and take notes.

I remember earlier this year on Josh Sawyers Twitter he said he was burnt out/taking a break from answering fallout questions. Does this mean, given the chance to make another Obsidian Fallout game, Josh would not want to work on it? He just seems really tired of the franchise anymore, and is way more interested in stuff like Pillars of Eternity. I’m worried we’ll never get another Obsidian Fallout game with people Josh Sawyer/Chris Avellone/etc. to make it good. Especially with the Microsoft acquisition, we’re closer to a New Vegas type Fallout than ever. What do you think?

im gonna install it again this december.

This is the only game I regret not buying the collector's edition for.

I didn't truly appreciate fallout new Vegas when it came out. I was assuming it was going to be just like fallout 3 and I felt disappointed it didn't draw me in like fallout 3 did at the time. But looking back after these years, its so easy to see just how special fallout new Vegas is. It's a deeper game than 3 was but I enjoyed 3 alot because of the hopeless atmosphere of the capital wasteland.

I have honestly forgotten how many times I’ve played through this game. All I know is I bought it at release in 2010 for my 13th birthday and I’ve been playing on a regular basis ever since.

This game has a charm to it that keeps me coming back since the day it came out, I reinstalled this game and beat it 4 times in the same amount of time it took me to drag myself through Vanilla Fallout 4, just completed my first Max Difficulty/Survival play through the other day and might run it back again

I like that with skills that really it's your choice and you shouldn't be able to do everything, but you can if you try. If you dedicate time into being hyper optimised with picking points beforehand, you can pass pretty much every check, and the checks you can't, there's enough leniency for you to do it just with a different skill.

Bethesda had YEARS to just copy the kid's test next to them and they failed... I rest assured, that in some alternate timeline, Obsidian got to make future Fallouts with this team.

I still come back to this game, its just that good.

1000 hours of gameplay and still amazing me, long live new Vegas !!

1:53 the fact that he showed a clip with the dog eye bug is hilarious to me 😂 If you’ve never seen it the dogs eyes are outside the head on the right side and vertical

@10:00 of you have done many good deeds to a faction then betray them in someway you’ll go through stages of mixed trust, from “good hearted rascal” to “wild child” I believe they’re a total of 26 stages of a factions thoughts of you.

Something interesting about the Fallout NV is that it can actually portray the story of the courier, since you're always able to change your roleplaying style, which means the courier does evolve as a charcter. For one, most of the dialogue are not bound to a specific build, and the lines that are are added by acquiring perks, which is another way your character grows. Another way are the skils, even though you start with tag skills you can actually overtake them pretty quickly. One playthrough where i realized this is when i started lonesome road with a very small explosives skill, which i realised was a big drawback when i got the Red Glare, not wanting to waste this interesting weapon i mostly leveled up explosives specifically for it.

Every new Vegas fan - I love nv! it was my first experience with the fallout games and I hate fallout 4 because it wasn't fallout nv. This explains the over hype with nv.

This video answered a very big question of conflict in the community. I've had my own understanding on why Bethesda Fallout games felt so different compared to Black Isle/Obsidian Fallout games. Bethesda Fallouts essentially pre-determine your motivations and most of the character's personality at the beginning of the game which ends up filling more than half of the "Player-Shaped Hole" mentioned in this video. Meanwhile, the other Fallout games provide a setting from which you can develop your character's personality off of and most personal canons are viable and sustainable because the game did not say "you were this the whole time living this lifestyle all your life".

Loving this series, excited for more!!!

Once again an absolutely amazing video, good job everyone! I think tonight I'll also rewatch hbomberguy's take on the game. :D

Commenting for algorithm boosting

One thing about this game that I always loved is character freedom and also replayability. This game has really been aged for 10 years now and it's sad that we haven't even got a remastered version or a remake of the game if Bethesda gave obsidian so much time and effort to put in so much content and I mean a lot of content was cut out from the game that was supposed to be one of the best RPGs of all time. Very unique dialogue in this game that is Well written skill checks, reputation, player choice, and also the ability to play it over and over again. I started out as a low intelligence character and I got to tell you it was one of the funniest dialogues that I come across with whenever you are having a low intelligent playthrough cuz Fallout New Vegas can access to very funny dialogues if you play the the game right. Lots of references from Fallout 1 and 2 and I really like the trait perk system. I manage myself to be able to create a female character and a male character let's not forget the DLCs dead money was a nightmare on Hardcore Mode still suffering from the PTSD from the beeping sound from where you have an explosive collar around your neck. Weapons crafting and weapon mods are really awesome as well if you're into a energy weapons build, unarmed build, a guns build, or even explosive build Fallout New Vegas has it all. Those damn cazador's I would never forget that time that a mutated tarantula hawk would give me poison and also killed me instantly I placed those enemies with deathclaws in a minute. I also like the deathclaw designs to like the alpha deathclaw and the mother deathclaw as well in the Quarry Junction in New Vegas it's so much to explore and so much time to put in into this game and I played hours and hours of non-stop going back and not putting this game down it's just one of the best Fallout RPGs. If you want to blow up the Brotherhood of Steel if you want to side with them you can if you want to be a evil character or a passive character or make your own backstory Fallout New Vegas has it all. I earned all the achievements for both PC and Xbox but I prefer on Xbox that's just my opinion :)

Great video. Fallout New Vegas genuinely is one of the best games ever made. I really hope we get a "sequel" 😏

Thank you so much!

I guess by playing Fallout 3 first and expecting NV to be similar, I never even noticed how many choices this game has. I just played it all straight through with the assumption that the BoS was the same as it was in 3. I still haven't been able to comprehend how many outcomes to each quest there are never gotten all companions, and still haven't really paid attention to the DLC except for Dead Money. Doesn't help that the PS3 version had the save file size glitch that was never fixed and it still doesn't run well on my crappy laptop.

Goddamn I'm not even stunned at the obvious work put into the video, I just love this guy's gorgeous voice. 😍

This and kotor 2 are my favourite games of all time I've lost count how many times I've beat em

this guys were not aiming at maximizing the profit for a corporation, but at maximizing the experience for the guy that actually play the game, you can feel theyr passion while they describe what a player should be able to do if he want to do something, not how he should play and be a passive watcher of a story written by someone else. wich at the end, guess what, will create a product that people will love forever (this game came out in 2010, 11 years ago, and people is still playing, memeing ant talking about it) and it's gonna sell a lot in the long run. all of this with a fraction of the budget used by bethesdASS, i doubt we will see something like this ever again.

Damn almost want to go back now :p What mods are you using, the character models especially looked great.

I love the freedom in New Vegas - it's too bad I just can't bring myself to play an evil character.

That's what I always loved about new vegas that freedom to do whatever I wanted and play in a compelling world with compelling characters it makes it such a fun experience and that doubles with mods the only thing that ever hampered enjoyment was the constant bugs and crashes but even that couldn't ruin it

they should of taken this advice on board when they made the outer worlds

Brilliant video!

I hope we get a Fallout New Vegas remaster with a fallout 4 engine

Would be nice if they remastered this and fallout 3

Great video as always man! Excited that you covered one of my favourite games ever Just curious, how do you feel about the Life is Strange games? They get a fairly good reception and they do a good job of showing the consequences of their choices, but there are also some valid criticisms of the games. Despite that I am an action-oriented gamer, I have a pretty big soft spot for the Life is Strange stories, and I wonder how you feel about them (If at all)

Happy 11th Birthday New Vegas.

I badly would love to see a remaster of New Vegas for Xbox one/Ps4. Yes i know new gen devices are out and NO i dont care since its not well stocked on shelves

I still play it through about once a year. Such a great game!

Absolutely love how this game still gets the notoriety it so deserves

Easily the best fallout and easily one of the best games ever made

My favorite game of all time

Great video

It's been said on here before, but Fallout's greatness comes from the way it's arguably the first ever RPG where it feels like you're actually playing against a DM who's reacting to what you do. Successfully creating that illusion is at the core of any story-based RPG, and Fallout is one of the only games ever to succeed at it. You classify this as "entertainment elements", which comes across as kind of dismissive. It's fair to criticise Fallout's core mechanics (because they are a bit shit, for the reasons you pointed out), but it's equally fair to say that the game doesn't necessarily need great combat. And at least the combat is serviceable, rewards/punishes you for your skill point allocations as it should, and is over quickly. It's not like New Vegas, which might be the best Fallout game if it weren't trapped in the fucking Gamebryo engine, forcing you to endure the worst combat known to mankind.

I've seen other people make a big deal about the courier's past as a courier and that this is supposed to signal that their history is predefined, but it's the exact opposite: it's the shallowest pretext possible for what the player is going to spend most of the game doing: walking from place to place doing quests and reporting in on their assignments to faction leaders. Even when the game finally does go into the player's history in Lonesome Road, you can completely deny everything Ulysses is saying and there's even evidence to back up the possibility that he's completely mistaken about who you are: there's a terminal explaining that the Divide is geologically unstable and could easily have caused the nukes below ground to spontaneously detonate.

thanks for creating one of the best games of all time

I had a blast with New Vegas and the DLC's! Truly an amazing apocalypse experience!

Cool video!

The thumbnail made me think this was a Žižek commentary on FNV for like 0.268 seconds.

God i love this game! my xbox 360 burnt 3 copies of this game because i played so much and so long!

I heard the voice and I was like ??? Why does this guy sound so familiar. Then I checked the channel 😂 I'm a big fan of the podcast and the videos on screenplays (since I'm a screenwriter myself) this is pretty cool. I don't do much gaming but this looks pretty interesting.

Is it free because my game freezes constantly whh he be trying to go over mountain terrain tiles (or however they programmed those spaces) because it’s not even just ridiculous mountain climbing (which I am guilty of too) but sometimes it’s like a big rocky patch between two roads/paths and I’m in a rock.. soft locked.. obviously a minor/cheeky gripe but it’s just funny to me that it’s one of my favorite open world games but one of the most broken that I actually play..

The greatest!

Fallout: New Vegas truly is a special game. So much so that it has earned the place of being my favorite video game of all time. That being said, I cannot ignore its flaws. One of which is greatly bugged due to being given a short time of 18 months by Bethesda while Bethesda was working its kinks out with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (my second favorite all-time favorite game). Fallout: New Vegas is one of those games that is already great but can ultimately become much greater through mods. Which is what I’m doing right now. In fact, I’ve hardly played almost any other game ever since I got into modding for New Vegas. I’ve turned New Vegas into a post-apocalyptic Call of Duty to a post-apocalyptic Manhunt. The roleplaying possibilities in this game are truly endless whether with or without mods. Though if you ask me, playing with mods further enhances this already great roleplaying experience. Which is why I have such high praise for this video game along with the fact that it offers so many variety of weapons to choose from. I could go on all day rambling about how great of a game New Vegas is. But it’s truly one of those games that one must play for oneself to truly understand the gameplay experience it has to offer. Although Fallout 3 has introduced me to the Fallout franchise and the post-apocalyptic genre in general, Fallout: New Vegas has cemented my love for the genre and the series. Despite the massive missteps Bethesda has taken in recent years (Looking at Fallout 4 and 76 though the former isn’t all that bad by comparison to the latter). New Vegas has truly become a living video game icon where people are still talking about and are still modding it a decade later. You could wear a trench coat and a red-eyes gas mask and take that out of context and people will still say, “Yeah, that’s Fallout: New Vegas.” Only a few games can hold up for that long. It is my hope and prayer that this game’s relevance goes well even further down the line. Even to the point where I would encourage my future children and perhaps future grandchildren to try this game for themselves.

Without trying, this video is also dunking on the Frontier.

I played and replayed this game so many times it's downright uncanny. However every single time it was awesome. You dont get this kind of detail and length in games these days.

Finding out who shot you is a more universal motivation than finding your kid or daddy. Not everyone wants that boring storyline.

It has the smallest map, most invisible walls, and also deathclaws that will kill you if you leave the "main path" to early. I love this game but i dont think this take is it.

Subbing now!

Allways put 10 points in intelligence

For some reason, your videos don't show up in my recommended feed. I have to come look for them. Which isn't good, right?

Vegas to me is the best game ever made. My love of my childhood.