Fallout: New Vegas begins with the player’s character being shot twice in the head and buried in a shallow grave in the Mojave desert. The character is a courier, dug out by a robot and patched up by a small-town doctor. From there the game opens onto a stretch of Nevada desert where an army from California, a slave legion styled on ancient Rome and a mysterious businessman in a casino tower all want the city, and the player can help any of them, or take it for themselves.
It was a sequel made by the people who had nearly made it once before. Bethesda Softworks, which owned Fallout, gave the game to Obsidian Entertainment, whose founders came from Interplay’s Black Isle Studios. Edge pointed out that Obsidian’s Chris Avellone and J. E. Sawyer had been working on Black Isle’s own Fallout 3, code-named Van Buren, when Interplay’s money ran out.
Fast facts
- Developer: Obsidian Entertainment.
- Publisher: Bethesda Softworks.
- Released: October 2010, for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
- Director: Josh Sawyer (J. E. Sawyer), formerly lead designer of Black Isle’s Icewind Dale games.
- Engine: Bethesda’s Fallout 3 engine, with its VATS targeting system.
- Development time: 18 months.
- Setting: the Mojave Wasteland, Nevada, around a rebuilt Las Vegas Strip.
Built in 18 months
Bethesda’s own Fallout 3 had come out in 2008. New Vegas kept its engine, its first-person view and the VATS system, which freezes the action so the player can aim at individual body parts and then plays the shots out in slow motion. Edge’s preview in May 2010 noticed how closely the new game followed “the language established in Fallout 3, much of which was inherited from Oblivion prior to that”, and expected the same criticisms to follow it. Sawyer later explained the reason: “it was only 18 months”.
Obsidian spent its time on the world instead. Edge‘s preview found that relations with the factions were “the biggest change”, and the player’s reputation with each could be raised or wrecked separately. Skills such as sneaking opened up new choices in conversation. An optional hardcore mode, based on players’ modifications to Fallout 3, made the courier eat, drink and sleep, gave ammunition weight, and made Stimpaks heal slowly. There was also a new card game, Caravan, to play in the casinos.
The Mojave
The world is a 1950s idea of Las Vegas after a nuclear war. Wireframe noted that Obsidian modelled the Lucky 38 casino on the Stratosphere tower, and recreated real places around the city, such as Lake Las Vegas and the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. Edge’s previewer met a dinosaur-shaped gift shop with a sniper in its mouth, and a desert standoff between the Roman-styled slavers of Caesar’s Legion and the rangers of the New California Republic.
Four powers want the city: the New California Republic, Caesar’s Legion, Mr House, the pre-war businessman who rules the Strip from his casino tower, and the player, who can take over with the help of a robot called Yes Man. One of the game’s quests is called “The House Always Wins”. Wireframe thought House, voiced by René Auberjonois, gave “an understandable and – some would argue – rational perspective” on how humanity could recover. The PC version’s achievements later showed how players chose. In 2011 Edge reported that 18.7 per cent of PC players had taken the city for themselves, while only 6.7 per cent, in the magazine’s words, “threw in with the villains”.
Bugs
Reviewers liked what Obsidian had written and not how it ran. Edge gave the Xbox 360 version six out of ten in its Christmas 2010 issue. It praised the “bewitching world” and a tone that shifted “from cheery smile to death-ray in a heartbeat”, and listed “the game’s litany of problems”: a camera in VATS that showed “a useless view of a wall”, invisible walls, long loading times, objects popping into view and a game that crashed five times during the review. “Creatively, New Vegas gets almost everything right,” it concluded. “Mechanically and technically, it’s a tragedy.”
The game sold well. Game Developer reported that it shipped five million copies in its first month. Its PC and Xbox 360 versions averaged 84 on Metacritic, and in 2012 Avellone wrote that Obsidian’s contract had paid “only a bonus if we got an 85+ on Metacritic, which we didn’t” (see Obsidian Entertainment).
Later history
Four story add-ons followed: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road. On the PC, players’ modifications fixed much of what Edge had complained about, and years later Wireframe was still recommending the game, played “with a recommended set of mods”, as “a stable, deep, engaging take on the wildest wasteland”. Obsidian’s later The Outer Worlds (2019) was received as a successor in spirit. In December 2025 the second season of Amazon’s Fallout television series took its characters across the Mojave to New Vegas.
Sources
- Edge issue 214, May 2010, pp. 34–35: preview (Obsidian “born from the ashes of Black Isle”; Avellone, Sawyer and Van Buren; the language of Fallout 3 and Oblivion; the factions; the courier shot twice in the head; Goodsprings and Doc Mitchell; Helios One; the hardcore mode).
- Edge issue 217, August 2010, p. 42: preview (Novac and Dinky the Dinosaur; Caesar’s Legion and the NCR; skills in conversation; VATS; Caravan; the companion wheel; hardcore mode).
- Edge issue 222, Christmas 2010, pp. 86–87: review (360, PC, PS3; Bethesda Softworks; Obsidian; the tone; the factions; VATS; the bugs and crashes; hardcore mode inspired by PC mods; six out of ten).
- Edge issue 232, October 2011, p. 19: achievement statistics for the PC version (18.7 per cent took the city; 6.7 per cent sided with the villains).
- PC Gamer (US) issue 119, January 2004, p. 13: J. E. Sawyer, lead designer of Icewind Dale, resigning from Black Isle while working on Van Buren.
- Wireframe issue 14, May 2019, p. 29: the Strip, the Lucky 38 and the Stratosphere, Lake Las Vegas and the 1959 sign.
- Wireframe issue 59, January 2022, p. 42: Robert House, “The House Always Wins”, René Auberjonois.
- Wireframe issue 55, September 2021, pp. 110–111: The Outer Worlds as a “Fallout: New Vegas 2”; New Vegas recommended with mods.
- TJ Denzer, “Fallout: New Vegas director wouldn’t be opposed to working on the franchise again”, Shacknews, 18 November 2022 (web, secondary): Sawyer as director; “a crazy development because it was only 18 months”. https://shacknews.com/article/133188/fallout-5-new-vegas-josh-sawyer-director-obsidian
- “Report: Obsidian missed Fallout: New Vegas bonus by one Metacritic point”, Game Developer, March 2012 (web, secondary): five million copies shipped; Avellone’s tweet. As cited, with Shacknews, in the Obsidian Entertainment entry. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/report-obsidian-missed-i-fallout-new-vegas-i-bonus-by-one-metacritic-point
- Wikipedia, “Fallout: New Vegas” (accessed October 2026) (web, secondary): release dates, the four main endings and Yes Man, the add-ons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas
- Jennifer Maas, “‘Fallout’ Season 2 to Premiere Early on Amazon’s Prime Video”, Variety, 16 December 2025 (web, secondary): the second season’s journey to New Vegas. https://au.variety.com/2025/tv/news/fallout-season-2-release-date-early-31130