Though The Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda Game Studios has served as the shepherd of Fallout ever since the company acquired the series from Interplay Entertainment in 2007, the game often regarded as the best in the franchise is ironically one that wasn't developed by Bethesda at all.
That title is Fallout: New Vegas, the 2010 entry made by the storied RPG studio Obsidian Entertainment during the gap between the 2008 release of Bethesda's Fallout 3 and its direct sequel, 2015's Fallout 4 (between them, it made a little game called Skyrim you may have heard about).
Over the years, many have come to feel that New Vegas is a cut above the rest of the series, with the game's player freedom, narrative depth, complex interconnected quests, and rich RPG systems all winning the hearts of countless players. One Bethesda dev, though, "initially felt a little touchy" about the glowing reputation of Obsidian's take on Fallout because it used the work done for Fallout 3 as a base.
"You always get those guys jumping out of the woodwork to say, 'New Vegas is the best! Bethesda sucks!', and I’m like, 'Okay,'" began character artist Jonah Lobe, speaking on the KIWI TALKZ podcast. "I initially felt a little touchy about it, because I was like, 'We made 90% of the art, we built the engine.'" We did all that stuff [and] we did it in a very limited window of time and they got to just work on the stories."
Indeed, New Vegas utilizes the same version of Bethesda's Gamebryo tech — the predecessor to the Creation Engine and its own variants that would go on to power Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starfield, and the upcoming The Elder Scrolls 6 — that it created for Fallout 3, and also reuses a significant amount of Fallout 3's assets for its textures, in-game items, and more.
But while Lobe says he felt like "it's a little unfair that we were being judged on not having the storylines [that New Vegas had]," he made it clear that he still greatly enjoys and respects New Vegas, believes Obsidian did an excellent job with the RPG, and even wishes Fallout 3's story and writing had similar depth and nuance.
"But with that said ... Obsidian killed it. Like, I think they did a beautiful job, and it did make me feel a little bit sad that our design team could not envision the same kind of — maybe they just didn't have time or bandwidth. Like, they just didn't implement the same scale of really ambitious of 'huge arc, multi-choices' kind of thing."
When Lobe sought out the opinions of some of the other devs present on the podcast, ex-Bethesda artist Nate Purkeypile said he likes New Vegas a lot, but thinks it stumbles some with dungeons and world design.
"I do think Vegas is a really good game, but it also does some things worse. I think its dungeons and world design are not as good," he commented. "So, it's like, from a writing and design perspective I think they did better, but I do not feel the same way about their dungeons."
Lobe, though, raised another valuable point: Obsidian had to develop New Vegas in a very short timeframe of just 18 months. "We should also say they had a limited window of time to work. They were very pressed for time — an unfair amount of time, honestly."
I love New Vegas to pieces, but it's true that Bethesda's work on the foundation Obsidian built it on tends to go unrecognized, and shouldn't. That being said, Fallout 3 was incredibly well-received too.
In the end, both games are fantastic RPGs, which is why I'm stoked to play the upcoming Fallout 3 and New Vegas remasters we know are coming. Haven't checked the games out yet? Every Fallout title is playable on Xbox and PC through Xbox Game Pass.
🗨️ Which Fallout game is your favorite?
It's interesting to hear Bethesda developers that previously worked on Fallout discuss their thoughts on Fallout: New Vegas, and some of the things they think others games in the series do better while acknowledging the impressive narrative depth and design of Obsidian's RPG.
New Vegas is definitely my favorite Fallout game, but I'm curious to hear from you about yours. Give your take in the comments, and vote in our ongoing poll!
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