50 Fun Facts About Fallout: New Vegas

Which studio developed Fallout: New Vegas?

Bethesda published the game but contracted Obsidian, a studio co-founded by former Black Isle staff, to build it in roughly 18 months.

In which year is the game set?

That is 204 years after the Great War and four years after Fallout 3's 2277 setting.

Which wearable computer serves as the player's menu and map?

The first two games used the Pip-Boy 2000; New Vegas keeps Fallout 3's 3000 model, complete with radio and fast travel.

Which item is the Courier delivering when they are ambushed?

The chip is a data storage device Mr. House commissioned before the bombs fell; it upgrades his Securitron army.

Who shoots the Courier in the head at the start of the game?

The checkered-suit mobster is voiced by Friends star Matthew Perry.

Which Securitron digs the Courier out of a shallow grave?

Victor, with his cowboy persona, is one of Mr. House's robots keeping an eye on Goodsprings.

Which physician nurses the Courier back to health?

His house in Goodsprings doubles as the character-creation screen, complete with the Vigor Tester and a Rorschach test.

Which structure becomes the focal point of the war between the NCR and the Legion?

Josh Sawyer reasoned that desert factions would care most about water, so the dam became the worldbuilding anchor.

What does the acronym NCR stand for?

The NCR first appeared in Fallout 2, which is one reason Obsidian wanted a West Coast setting.

Caesar's Legion takes its structure from the army of which ancient power?

Its founder, Edward Sallow, took the name Caesar and built the Legion from assimilated tribes.

What type of robot makes up Mr. House's army?

The Platinum Chip contains the software upgrade that turns them into a far deadlier Mark II force.

Which heavily armed, xenophobic tribe occupies Nellis Air Force Base?

Approach their base on foot and they greet you with artillery fire, which makes their quests a test of nerve.

The Powder Gangers are escaped convicts from a facility run by which group?

They took over their own prison and terrorize Goodsprings and Primm early in the game.

Which reprogrammed Securitron helps the player pursue an independent ending?

Originally Benny's tool to usurp Mr. House, Yes Man is programmed to be helpful to anyone who asks.

How many main endings does the game have?

NCR, Legion, Mr. House, or an independent New Vegas with Yes Man — each with its own final battle at the dam.

What is the name of the optional survival difficulty setting?

It makes ammo weigh something, lets companions die permanently, and requires eating, drinking and sleeping.

How many secondary skills, such as Barter and Survival, does the game use?

The Survival skill was new for this game; Fallout 3's Small Guns and Big Guns were merged into a single Guns skill.

At which levels can the player choose a perk?

This halved the perk rate compared with Fallout 3, one of the small balance changes Obsidian made.

Which Barter score is needed to ask a shopkeeper for a discount in the example dialogue?

Skill checks show their required number in dialogue, so players can see exactly what they missed.

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

Cancelled in December 2003, it would have spanned Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Utah — much of it later echoed in New Vegas.

Which offer from Bethesda had Obsidian turned down in 2007 before taking the Fallout job?

The idea never gained traction; two years later Todd Howard suggested Obsidian for a full Fallout spin-off instead.

Which Nevada city was proposed as an alternative setting before Las Vegas was chosen?

Fallout 2 had already used New Reno, so the team ultimately went south to the bigger neon.

Digital assets from which cancelled Obsidian game were repurposed for New Vegas?

Sega cancelled Aliens: Crucible in 2009; Sawyer insisted the pipelines stay intact so the art could be reused.

What was one of the game's working titles?

Sawyer wanted a story about greed and excess, drawing on Las Vegas's organized-crime history.

Which 1963 event did Sawyer use as the cut-off for historical references?

Nothing in the game's culture references anything after that moment, keeping the retro-future consistent.

Which agency's data did Obsidian use to build the Mojave map?

Sawyer also took his own reference photographs around Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon.

The giant dinosaur statue at Novac is based on roadside attractions in which California town?

The Cabazon Dinosaurs also appear in Pee-wee's Big Adventure; in-game the dinosaur is Dinky.

The casinos' architecture is modeled on which mid-century design movement?

Googie is the space-age diner-and-motel style of 1950s Southern California and Las Vegas.

Which game engine, inherited from Fallout 3, did Obsidian build the game on?

No Obsidian staff had used it, so the studio hired an Oblivion modder to help.

Who composed the game's original soundtrack?

Zur drew on the score of There Will Be Blood and wrote for a string quartet to evoke the Southwest.

Roughly how many lines of dialogue were recorded, setting a Guinness World Record?

The record was for the most lines of dialogue in a single-player role-playing game.

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

The role was written specifically for him, and he reprised it for season two of the TV series.

Matthew Perry was cast as Benny after giving which TV host a copy of Fallout 3?

Perry was a vocal Fallout 3 fan, and the on-air gift caught Obsidian's attention.

How many months did Bethesda give Obsidian to develop the game?

Sawyer said the team worked 40-50 hour weeks and never felt the schedule was impossible, just tight.

Why was the Strip split into sections separated by loading screens?

The Strip was meant to be one continuous area until console dev kits revealed it could not run that way.

Planned settlements cut from the game were located east of which river?

Three of the cut locations would have been Legion-controlled and fleshed out that faction considerably.

On what date was the game released in North America?

Australia got it on October 21 and Europe on October 22, 2010.

Roughly how many copies had the game sold worldwide by 2015, per one estimate?

It had already shifted five million copies and made $300 million within three weeks of launch.

Obsidian missed a bonus payment by failing to reach which Metacritic score?

The Windows and Xbox 360 versions landed on 84, one point short, and the PS3 version on 82.

Who led development of the game's downloadable content?

Avellone was project director on Dead Money, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road, writing almost all of the first and last himself.

Which DLC traps the Courier in a heist at the Sierra Madre Casino?

It plays as survival horror, with a toxic cloud, explosive collars and invincible holographic guards.

Which national park is the setting of Honest Hearts?

It is the rare Fallout location with running water and green trees, and it introduces Joshua Graham, the Burned Man.

Which DLC is built around B-movie humor and a group of mad scientists?

The Think Tank are brains in floating robot chassis who replace the Courier's own brain, spine and heart.

Which character, tracked in Lonesome Road, refused the job of delivering the chip to Mr. House?

Avellone originally wrote Ulysses as a companion for the base game before he was cut and reworked for the DLC.

Which rogue Brotherhood elder collars the Courier at the Sierra Madre?

He wants the casino's Big MT technology to wage a one-man war on the NCR; the player can trap him in the vault forever.

What was Joshua Graham's title as Caesar's second-in-command?

After losing the first battle of Hoover Dam he was set on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon — and survived.

Which Think Tank doctor hacked his colleagues' brains and built robo-scorpions?

He erased their memories and trapped them in a recursion loop to protect the wasteland from them.

The Divide in Lonesome Road was created around which two pre-war towns?

The Courier unknowingly delivered the detonator package that set off the silos and flayed the survivors into marked men.

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.

Since 2022 a yearly fan event has been held in which real Nevada town, the game's starting location?

The real Pioneer Saloon there has stood since 1913 and appears in the game as the Prospector Saloon.