100 Fun Facts About Fallout: New Vegas

In Fallout: New Vegas, which Strip casino does the reclusive Mr. House rule from?

The Lucky 38: it looms over the Strip yet stays closed to the public, until the Courier is invited inside and handed its presidential suite.

Fallout: New Vegas is set 204 years after which event in the series' timeline?

The Great War: the nuclear exchange of 2077 lasted about two hours, yet most of Las Vegas survived because Mr. House's defences stopped nearly every warhead aimed at it.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which wearable computer serves as the player's menu and map?

Pip-Boy 3000: the Courier's is a hand-me-down, a gift from the doctor who patches them up and who once wore it himself as a vault dweller.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which item is the Courier delivering when they are ambushed and shot?

The Platinum Chip: Mr. House designed it before the bombs fell, lost it in the war, then spent two centuries hunting for it.

Who shoots the Courier in the head at the start of Fallout: New Vegas?

Benny: the checkered-suit mobster, voiced by Friends star Matthew Perry, tells his victim "the game was rigged from the start" before pulling the trigger.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which Securitron digs the Courier out of a shallow grave?

Victor: townsfolk distrust his cheerful cowboy act, since the robot had never done much to help anyone before he dug up a stranger.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which physician nurses the Courier back to health?

Doc Mitchell: his check-up doubles as character creation, since the tests he runs set the Courier's stats before he hands over his old Vault 21 jumpsuit.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which structure is the focal point of the war between the NCR and Caesar's Legion?

Hoover Dam: it still generates power two centuries after the bombs, and a treaty hands the NCR 95% of its output, so whoever holds it holds the Mojave's electricity.

In the Fallout games, which animal appears on the flag of the New California Republic?

A two-headed bear: the NCR's flag is a variation on the old California state flag, a pre-War symbol given one extra head.

Before founding Caesar's Legion, Edward Sallow was raised and educated by which Fallout faction?

The Followers of the Apocalypse: the humanitarians taught him to read and sent him east as a scholar, where a cache of books on ancient Rome gave him other ideas.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which fast, venomous flying insects were created in a laboratory before escaping into the Mojave?

Cazadores: the scientist whose experiments created them still insists they never escaped his lab and cannot breed, while swarms of them multiply across the wasteland.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which heavily armed, xenophobic tribe occupies Nellis Air Force Base?

The Boomers: descended from vault dwellers who raided their own armoury, they hauled howitzers back to the base and now shell anyone who walks up to it.

Which Fallout: New Vegas group is made up of escaped convicts who took over their own prison?

The Powder Gangers: the NCR put its prisoners to work on the railroad with dynamite and blasting powder, and they used the explosives to blast their way out.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which robot helps the Courier claim the city for themselves in the independent ending?

Yes Man: rebuilt so that he obeys whoever is talking to him, he promises to help the Courier "accomplish so much, whether I want to or not".

Which commander, feared as the "Monster of the East", leads Caesar's Legion in the final battle of Fallout: New Vegas?

Lanius: for all his fearsome reputation, the Legate never has to be fought, because a Courier who passes a string of Speech checks can talk him into retreating.

Which optional Fallout: New Vegas mode makes the Courier eat, drink and sleep to stay alive?

Hardcore Mode: it can be switched off at any moment, but the achievement goes only to players who finish the whole game without ever doing so.

Which skill, added in Fallout: New Vegas, boosts the benefit the Courier gets from food and drink?

Survival: it replaced the Outdoorsman skill of the first two Fallout games, and it also unlocks campfire recipes, including poisons for coating weapons.

At which levels can the player choose a perk in Fallout: New Vegas?

Every even-numbered level: Fallout 3 had granted a perk at every level, so New Vegas players choose half as often and each permanent pick counts for more.

Which actor narrates the opening of Fallout: New Vegas, as he did for the first Fallout game?

Ron Perlman: he has spoken the series' signature line, "War. War never changes", since the first game, yet in Fallout 4 he was heard only as a TV newscaster.

Which cancelled Black Isle project was originally meant to be the third mainline Fallout?

Van Buren: cancelled in 2003, it left behind ideas that New Vegas later picked up, among them a tribal army modelled on Rome called Caesar's Legion.

Which old gunfighter ballad won a new generation of fans by playing on the radio in Fallout: New Vegas?

Big Iron: Marty Robbins's song about an Arizona ranger facing down an outlaw plays on three of the game's stations, and the game's success sparked a revival of his music.

Which Nevada city was proposed as the setting of Fallout: New Vegas before Las Vegas was chosen?

Reno: the team debated going back to New Reno, the gangster city of Fallout 2, until, as Obsidian's boss put it, "we saw Vegas and we just went with it".

Which Obsidian project did Sega cancel in 2009, shortly before the studio began Fallout: New Vegas?

An Alien RPG: Sega shelved Aliens: Crucible in 2009, but Obsidian kept the engine it had been building for it, and the offer to make a Fallout game came at about the same time.

What was one of the working titles of Fallout: New Vegas?

Fallout: Sin City: Obsidian's three-page pitch borrowed Las Vegas's old nickname because the story was meant to be about greed and excess.

Which event did the director of Fallout: New Vegas use as the cut-off for the game's historical references?

The Kennedy assassination: Josh Sawyer let the setting drift from the 1950s into the early 1960s, but ruled out music or anything else from after that day.

Which agency's data did Obsidian use to build the Mojave map of Fallout: New Vegas?

The United States Geological Survey: Obsidian put its terrain data into the pitch for the game, then the director went to Las Vegas to photograph the desert around it.

Which Fallout: New Vegas town is watched over by Dinky, a giant roadside dinosaur?

Novac: the town is named after its motel's broken "No Vacancy" sign, and its dinosaur is modelled on the real roadside giants of Cabazon, California.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which cyberdog with a failing brain can join the Courier as a companion?

Rex: he belongs to the King, who runs a school of Elvis impersonators, and travels with the Courier on a quest to find him a healthy replacement brain.

Which engine, inherited from Fallout 3, did Obsidian use to build Fallout: New Vegas?

Gamebryo: nobody at Obsidian had worked with it, so the first person on the team who knew the engine was a modder hired for his overhaul of Oblivion.

Who composed the original score of Fallout: New Vegas?

Inon Zur: Obsidian steered him toward the stark score of the film There Will Be Blood and asked for small string groups in which the rosin on the bows could be heard.

Which card game, invented for Fallout: New Vegas, uses a deck the Courier builds from cards found in the wasteland?

Caravan: a survivor in the first town hands the Courier a free starter deck, and any stray playing card picked up afterwards can be added to it.

Which Las Vegas entertainer voices the radio DJ Mr. New Vegas in Fallout: New Vegas?

Wayne Newton: the casting is a wink, since the veteran Strip headliner has long been known by the nickname Mr. Las Vegas.

Matthew Perry was cast in Fallout: New Vegas after giving which TV host a copy of Fallout 3?

Ellen DeGeneres: as a guest in 2009 he handed her an Xbox 360 and the game he couldn't stop playing, and the gesture led Obsidian to cast him in its follow-up.

Which publisher gave Obsidian just 18 months to make Fallout: New Vegas?

Bethesda Softworks: its own studio was moving on to Skyrim, so it hired Obsidian, founded by veterans of the first Fallout games, and set a very tight deadline.

Why was the Strip in Fallout: New Vegas split into sections separated by loading screens?

Console optimization problems: the Strip was designed as one open street, but it would not run on console test kits, so it was cut into gated sections.

Which actor voices Raul Tejada, the ghoul mechanic who can join the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas?

Danny Trejo: his Raul is first met as the prisoner of a super mutant in a wig and glasses, drily asking whether he is "a pretty enough damsel" to be rescued.

Which game beat Fallout: New Vegas to role-playing game of the year at the 2011 Interactive Achievement Awards?

Mass Effect 2: BioWare's space epic took the prize at a ceremony held in a casino resort in Las Vegas, so New Vegas lost on its own home turf.

Which optional trait in Fallout: New Vegas switches on the game's silliest pop-culture Easter eggs?

Wild Wasteland: the game bills it as "not for the faint of heart or the serious of temperament", and one of its surprises is a crashed flying saucer with its crew still standing guard.

Obsidian missed a bonus for Fallout: New Vegas by a single point on which review-score website?

Metacritic: the bonus needed an average of 85 and the game stopped at 84, yet it is now widely counted among the best Fallout games ever made.

Which designer led development of the downloadable add-ons for Fallout: New Vegas?

Chris Avellone: he and the game's director used the add-ons for ideas they thought too risky for the main game, including a detour into outright horror.

Which Fallout: New Vegas add-on traps the Courier in a heist at the Sierra Madre Casino?

Dead Money: the Courier wakes up wearing an explosive collar and must dodge a poison cloud and unkillable holograms, in a story about learning to let go.

Which national park is the setting of Honest Hearts, an add-on for Fallout: New Vegas?

Zion: the Courier arrives as the only survivor of an ambushed expedition, then has to choose between helping the park's tribes fight off raiders and helping them flee.

In Fallout: New Vegas, the add-on Old World Blues sends the Courier to which crater full of pre-War laboratories?

Big MT: nicknamed the Big Empty, it is run by the Think Tank, scientists reduced to brains in hovering machines, who promptly remove the Courier's own brain.

In Fallout: New Vegas's Lonesome Road, which rival courier turned down the delivery job that got the player shot?

Ulysses: he was about to take the job himself until he saw the player's name next on the list, a courier he had believed dead and bitterly resented.

Which rogue Brotherhood of Steel leader fits the Courier with an explosive collar at the Sierra Madre?

Father Elijah: he means to remake the wasteland with the casino's holograms and poison cloud, but the Courier can lure him into its vault and lock him in for good.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which former Legion commander was set on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon, becoming the Burned Man?

Joshua Graham: once a missionary, he helped found the Legion as Caesar's Malpais Legate, was punished for losing a single battle, and survived to lead a tribe in Honest Hearts.

Which Think Tank doctor hacked his colleagues' brains and built robo-scorpions in Old World Blues?

Dr. Mobius: he wiped his colleagues' memories and sends the scorpions to keep them busy, because he feared what they would do to the wasteland if they ever got out.

In Fallout: New Vegas's Lonesome Road, which region did the Courier unknowingly destroy by delivering a package?

The Divide: the package held a detonator that set off warheads buried beneath the towns of Hopeville and Ashton, and one survivor has blamed the Courier ever since.

Which fan-made mod fully merges Fallout 3 and New Vegas into one game?

New California is a prequel about the Courier's backstory, and Viva New Vegas is a 'vanilla-plus' modding guide.

Which Fallout: New Vegas companion is a former sniper from the NCR's First Recon unit?

Boone: he joins only after the Courier helps him work out who sold his wife to slavers, a debt he settles himself with a single rifle shot.

Fallout: New Vegas earned a Guinness World Record for the most what in a single-player role-playing game?

Lines of dialogue recorded for Fallout: New Vegas topped 65,000, enough to set the record. Critics went on to praise the writing and quests while complaining about the glitches at launch.

Which post-apocalyptic film series did the desert setting of Fallout: New Vegas evoke for its makers?

Mad Max was one half of the pitch for the Mojave Desert; the other half was the 1950s imagery of old Las Vegas that the series is known for.

Which film hero is spoofed by a hat-wearing skeleton in a fridge, an optional Fallout: New Vegas Easter egg?

Indiana Jones rode out an atomic blast in a lead-lined refrigerator in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The Mojave's imitator, found on the road out of Goodsprings, was less fortunate.

Which real reservoir in Fallout: New Vegas hides a sunken B-29 bomber that the Courier can help raise?

Lake Mead holds a real B-29 too: a Superfortress on a research flight crashed into it in July 1948. The wreck is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Vikki and Vance, namesakes of a casino in Fallout: New Vegas, are a send-up of which real outlaw duo?

Bonnie and Clyde began robbing banks two days after Vikki and Vance started their own spree, or so the story goes. The lesser pair's crimes ran to shoplifting and gas pump drive-offs.

Which Fallout 3 director lobbied for Obsidian's New Vegas to be a full game rather than an expansion pack?

Todd Howard pushed for a whole game when his studio had only planned a large expansion pack. He also suggested Obsidian, because of its staff's history with the series.

Which predators overrun Quarry Junction, an abandoned limestone quarry in the Mojave of Fallout: New Vegas?

Deathclaws moved into the quarry once the blasting stopped. The stranded workers put up warning signs around the area and waited for someone to come and help.

In Fallout: New Vegas, what does a casino do to a Courier who wins too much at its tables?

A casino bans them from playing, but only after plying the winning Courier with rewards on the way up. Winnings already earned can be cashed out all the same.

Which actor plays Mr. House, ruler of the New Vegas Strip, in season two of the Fallout TV series?

Justin Theroux plays Robert House in a season set 15 years after the events of the 2010 story. Flashbacks show the tycoon as he was before the bombs fell.

Which company bought New Vegas developer Obsidian in 2018 and the Fallout rights holder in 2021?

Microsoft paid $8.1 billion for ZeniMax Media, the second of the two purchases. That put the series and the studio that made New Vegas under one corporate roof.

Which soft drink in Fallout: New Vegas hides a blue star under some of its bottle caps?

Sunset Sarsaparilla once asked drinkers to redeem 50 star caps at its Las Vegas headquarters for a prize. The company behind the root-beer-flavoured soda was founded in 1918.

Which corporation did Mr. House of Fallout: New Vegas found on his 22nd birthday, making his pre-War fortune?

RobCo Industries, his computer and robotics firm, was among the most profitable corporations in the world within five years of its founding.

Where in Fallout: New Vegas can the Courier make poisons, antivenom and healing powder?

At a campfire, the Courier can cook and brew whether the fire is found lit or unlit. They are scattered all around the Mojave, usually ringed by benches or makeshift bedding.

Which system in Fallout: New Vegas tracks how each faction and town feels about the Courier?

Reputation is counted faction by faction, so pleasing one can sour another. A grateful faction may hand over armour or open a secret base, while an angry one sends assassins.

In Fallout: New Vegas, which Roman punishment does Caesar's Legion inflict on its captives in Nipton?

Crucifixion on telephone poles greets the Courier in Nipton, beneath dark smoke rising from the town. The ruined town is where the Legion is formally introduced to the player.

Which actress, creator of a web series about online gamers, voices the scribe Veronica in Fallout: New Vegas?

Felicia Day was approached in 2009, just as her series The Guild was getting popular. Veronica's writer was a fan of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and wrote that style of comedy into the character.

Which 2019 RPG teamed New Vegas studio Obsidian with Fallout creators Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky?

The Outer Worlds swaps the Mojave for a distant planetary system colonised by megacorporations. One critic called it a shot at reclaiming the glory of Fallout: New Vegas.

Which broken eyebot can the Courier repair in Primm and recruit as a companion in Fallout: New Vegas?

ED-E was shot twice by a raider sniper and left on a shop counter by an owner who could not fix it. The name is short for Eyebot Duraframe Subject E.

The Holy Frag Grenades of Fallout: New Vegas, found in a church basement, salute which comedy troupe?

Monty Python featured the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch in their Holy Grail film. Only three of the Mojave's copies exist, guarded by a pair of geckos in Camp Searchlight.

Which pre-War souvenirs does Mr. House collect in Fallout: New Vegas, paying the Courier for each one found?

Snow globes of Mojave landmarks please Mr. House, who admits a fondness for little dioramas under glass. Each one earns the Courier 2,000 caps and a place on a display stand.

Which aiming feature, absent from Fallout 3, did Obsidian add to guns in Fallout: New Vegas?

Iron sights arrived alongside a rule that movement greatly affects accuracy, part of a push to give players more tactical options. The rest of Fallout 3's gameplay stayed largely unchanged.

Which treasure, weighing 35 pounds apiece, waits in the Sierra Madre vault in Fallout: New Vegas?

Gold bars lie 37 to the vault, valued at 390,239 caps in all but weighing 1,295 pounds together. The vault can be entered only during the add-on's final heist quest.

How did Caesar's Legion decide the fate of each resident it rounded up in Nipton in Fallout: New Vegas?

By lottery: tickets were handed out and the draw decided who was killed and who was enslaved, while the single winner walked free. Nipton had run a jackpot lottery of its own before the bombs.

Which casino on the New Vegas Strip is run by the Omertas and draws crowds of off-duty NCR troopers?

Gomorrah trades openly in vice where its rivals sell refinement, and NCR troopers often gather outside in large numbers. The Omertas are one of three families working under Mr. House.

Which Greek mathematician lends his name to the orbital weapon of HELIOS One in Fallout: New Vegas?

ARCHIMEDES was the U.S. Army's top-secret orbital energy weapon, developed at a solar plant built around an array of reflectors. A later legend has the real Archimedes burning Roman ships with mirrors.

Which raider gang in Fallout: New Vegas killed the dwellers of Vault 3 and took it over under Motor-Runner?

The Fiends are made up entirely of chem addicts, which explains the name. They claim a large part of the ruins south-west of New Vegas as their territory.

How did the residents of Vault 21 in Fallout: New Vegas settle conflicts before it became a hotel?

By gambling: chosen representatives played against each other in the main atrium, and the winner settled the matter. The decision to open the vault to Mr. House was itself won at blackjack.

Which shelter in Fallout: New Vegas was ordered to sacrifice one resident a year or see everyone killed?

Vault 11 elected its own overseer as the first sacrifice after he broke the news. The order was an experiment to measure how willing residents were to trade one life for their own safety.

Prolonged use of which device left the Nightkin of Fallout: New Vegas with schizophrenia?

Stealth Boy use was near-constant among the Nightkin, elite super mutants created by the Master as stealth troops. They scattered across the wasteland after his defeat.

Nightstalkers in Fallout: New Vegas were made by splicing rattlesnake DNA into which other desert predator?

Coyote DNA was the other half of the splice. The pre-War scientist behind it recalls, hazily, that he wanted to preserve rattlesnakes he believed were dying out.

Which illness afflicts Caesar in Fallout: New Vegas, giving the Courier the chance to operate on him?

A brain tumor is something Caesar himself suspects, but his Auto-Doc cannot perform the surgery because its diagnostic scanner is broken. The quest is titled Et Tumor, Brute?

Arcade Gannon's companion quest in Fallout: New Vegas reunites five old veterans of which defunct faction?

The Enclave was Arcade Gannon's birthright: he was born at its military base in Navarro, the son of an officer. He realises his old friends could make a difference in the final battle.

Which project director of Fallout: New Vegas wanted its story to be about greed and excess?

Josh Sawyer took reference photographs around Las Vegas, including Red Rock Canyon. He drew on the real town's ties to organised crime for the themes of the story.

Which pre-War resort on Mount Charleston serves as a refuge for mutants under Marcus in Fallout: New Vegas?

Jacobstown was named by Marcus after an old friend, and all are welcome so long as they are peaceful. Its doctors are searching for a cure for the mental illness of the Nightkin who live there.

Which silver coin, stamped with Caesar's profile, does the Legion mint as currency in Fallout: New Vegas?

Denarius coins trade at four bottle caps each, and 25 of them equal one gold Aureus. The Legion mints both from scavenged silver and gold.

Where did the Brotherhood of Steel retreat after its defeat by the NCR at HELIOS One in Fallout: New Vegas?

Hidden Valley took in the survivors of Operation: Sunburst, a battle that killed more than half the chapter's Paladins and Knights and cost it its leader.

Which company's old rocket test site houses Jason Bright's ghouls in Fallout: New Vegas?

REPCONN's launch dome had sat idle for years before the Bright Brotherhood moved in, seeking a promised paradise. The Courier can help repair their rockets, or reset the navigation so that they collide.

Which old custom did the White Glove Society of Fallout: New Vegas renounce in its contract with Mr. House?

Cannibalism was the tribe's old way of life; in return for giving it up, Mr. House agreed never to divulge the tribe's former name.

The unique pistol named That Gun in Fallout: New Vegas is a reference to which science-fiction film?

Blade Runner supplied the reference, while the name comes from players who called the .223 pistol of the first two Fallout titles simply That Gun.

Which sci-fi franchise's game did Obsidian turn down in 2007, before taking on Fallout: New Vegas?

Star Trek was the licence on the table, and the offer came from the same publisher that later hired the studio for its Mojave spin-off.

Which singer co-wrote and sang Johnny Guitar, the 1954 film theme heard on the radio in Fallout: New Vegas?

Peggy Lee wrote the lyrics herself for a Nicholas Ray film starring Joan Crawford, whose character plays the tune on the piano on screen.

Which 2025 game, set after Britain's Windscale fire, took Fallout: New Vegas as a reference point?

Atomfall borrowed the idea of a plot that revolves around one central location, the way every thread in the Mojave leads back to the Strip. Rebellion designer Ben Fisher drew the comparison.

Obsidian hired a modder of which fantasy RPG to help build Fallout: New Vegas on an unfamiliar engine?

Oblivion had been built on the engine that the Mojave spin-off inherited, and nobody at Obsidian had worked with it before. That inexperience still hindered development.

Which mid-century architectural style shaped the neon-clad casinos of the Strip in Fallout: New Vegas?

Googie takes its name from a Hollywood coffee shop and is known for upswept roofs and neon signs. Obsidian wanted its Strip to resemble the real one of the 1950s.

The score of Fallout: New Vegas, written for a string quartet, was inspired by the music of which 2007 film?

There Will Be Blood was the model for the composer, whose brief asked for a sound that was open, spacious, raw and lonesome. The music also shifts when combat begins.

Which Arizona city serves as the capital of Caesar's Legion in the lore of Fallout: New Vegas?

Flagstaff anchors a slaving empire that grew by assimilating conquered tribes across the American Southwest. Its ruler demands to be worshipped as the son of Mars.

Which leader of the Legion's Frumentarii masterminded the massacre at Nipton in Fallout: New Vegas?

Vulpes Inculta ordered the slaughter to send a message that nobody is beyond Caesar's reach. His Frumentarii serve the Legion as infiltrators and agents.

Which graphic novel, bundled with the collector's edition, serves as a prologue to Fallout: New Vegas?

All Roads covers the week leading up to the story and leaves the Courier out entirely, following the player's adversaries instead. It came in hardcover with the physical edition.

By what means has Mr. House of Fallout: New Vegas survived for more than two centuries since the bombs fell?

A life-support chamber preserves him while he rules the Strip as its technocratic dictator, commanding an army of Securitron robots.

Which statistic in Fallout: New Vegas is spent by every attack made in VATS and refills over time?

Action Points fuel the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, which pauses the fight so the player can pick out specific body parts of an enemy.