It’s been 16 years since the launch of Obsidian Entertainment Fallout: New Vegasand although it was often criticized at launch for its major technical problems, over time it grew to become what is arguably the most popular and famous role-playing game in the entire world. radioactive dust series, and many consider it the best game in the franchise. We asked our readers in a surveyand 50% of you agreed with that sentiment.
What was accomplished with New Vegas would be impressive if the game had a normal development cycle, but what makes it a particularly notable achievement is the fact that Obsidian had just 18 months to achieve it. The studio agreed to a period of a year and a half to make the role-playing game provided by Bethesdasince the latter wanted a new 2010 game to fill the gap between the 2008 ones. consequences 3 and 2011 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim.
In a new youtube videoNew Vegas director and lead designer Josh Sawyer has reflected on the title’s extremely tight development timeline, explaining that since Obsidian was building the game in a time crunch, it adapted as much technology and resources as possible from Fallout 3’s engine so it could focus on narrative, quest design, and open-world reactivity.
“For Fallout: New Vegas… my goal was… well, we were limited by the 18 months from the beginning,” Sawyer began. “So I said, ‘Let’s modestly restructure some of the systemic things that Bethesda did. Try to do everything we can to emulate their style of open-world exploration, and try to tell the best stories we can with the best quest reactivity we know how to do.’ Because there was very little else we could do in that time frame.”
In fact, Obsidian ended up basing much of Fallout 3 on it. some of its developers “initially felt a little touchy” about the eventual success of New Vegasbut in the end it was worth it. New Vegas became a hit and a masterpiece in the eyes of many, with most citing its rich, nuanced writing as its best quality, but even before that, Sawyer was confident that the developers made the right decision, even though it meant limiting the RPG’s scope.
“I believed in that team. We had fantastic designers and writers, and I believed they could create really fantastic quests and content,” he explained. “So I just said, ‘Look, we can’t set our sights on anything crazier than this. So let’s make the best quest and story content we can.'”
“And that was the goal. And to achieve it in 18 months, which meant that a lot of other ideas about things we could do had to fall by the wayside,” Sawyer continued. “So the 18 months wasn’t a goal, it was a limitation, but we had to work within it and that’s why we were so focused and I think the team did a fantastic job.”
I would have loved to see what New Vegas would have been like if Obsidian had more time to execute all the ideas it had. That said, it’s still a fantastic game, and I think the studio set out to do it as smartly as possible given the tight development timeline.
Is Fallout: New Vegas your favorite Fallout game? If not, what is it? Are you excited for the remasters of Fallout 3 and New Vegas? Vote in our poll and share your opinion in the comments.
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