Let's ride into the sunset together.
The mere existence of this remains as a modern-day miracle in regard to the developmental resources it was given; at no more than a year and a half, Obsidian was designated the task to develop a 50 hour experience (later expanding to ~70 hours with its four main expansion packs) on an engine they had little familiarity with. The liberal axing of storylines and hiring of community modders that assisted in reverse engineering Gamebryo, among other workarounds, were required to barely reach its release date.
What follows then is a journey that, even with more than a decade of bug fixes (official and unofficial), still stands out as janky in ways that either negatively impact the experience or only stand as signs as to the short timespan Obsidian was given. The Strip, though cut down to three separate sections, continues to lead the Gamebryo engine to buckle and stutter. Mods and script extenders cannot fully prevent the crashes that occur and makes the presence of a quicksave hotkey almost critical to trudge through them. NPCs may not trigger key events that are required to finish quests (“You’ll Know It When It Happens”' acts as a textbook example of this issue). Pieces of unimplemented side quests, including NPC names and odd locations, can be found strewn across the Mojave.
Yet, the allure hasn't worn off for me, even if I don’t quite feel pulled by its core story. Post-apocalypse goes beyond the immediate and lands in an environment where its presence isn't an overwhelming menace, even as traditional power structures endure; New Vegas renews hopes for the average wanderer desiring to find prosperity beyond survival while the mythicism of Elvis and Sinatra is fanatically studied in an attempt to re-establish a middle ground between total domination and subjugation in the Mojave. The Mojave is not re-defined by the bomb, with its tumbleweeds still blowing across amber-yellow sand, but rather by what those seek out of America, whether it is the ecological maw of Vault 22 or the cross-species harmony of Jacobstown. Cowboy-mythicism and destiny remain encouraged, but the dreams of the Mojave take higher ground; normal life feels somehow close to being realized even in the harshness surrounding it. What’s left in order to achieve it isn’t to be completed by a heir to legends, but a stranger with no ultimate expectations other than the inevitability of the Mojave tugging their feet away into barren land again.
The mere existence of this remains as a modern-day miracle in regard to the developmental resources it was given; at no more than a year and a half, Obsidian was designated the task to develop a 50 hour experience (later expanding to ~70 hours with its four main expansion packs) on an engine they had little familiarity with. The liberal axing of storylines and hiring of community modders that assisted in reverse engineering Gamebryo, among other workarounds, were required to barely reach its release date.
What follows then is a journey that, even with more than a decade of bug fixes (official and unofficial), still stands out as janky in ways that either negatively impact the experience or only stand as signs as to the short timespan Obsidian was given. The Strip, though cut down to three separate sections, continues to lead the Gamebryo engine to buckle and stutter. Mods and script extenders cannot fully prevent the crashes that occur and makes the presence of a quicksave hotkey almost critical to trudge through them. NPCs may not trigger key events that are required to finish quests (“You’ll Know It When It Happens”' acts as a textbook example of this issue). Pieces of unimplemented side quests, including NPC names and odd locations, can be found strewn across the Mojave.
Yet, the allure hasn't worn off for me, even if I don’t quite feel pulled by its core story. Post-apocalypse goes beyond the immediate and lands in an environment where its presence isn't an overwhelming menace, even as traditional power structures endure; New Vegas renews hopes for the average wanderer desiring to find prosperity beyond survival while the mythicism of Elvis and Sinatra is fanatically studied in an attempt to re-establish a middle ground between total domination and subjugation in the Mojave. The Mojave is not re-defined by the bomb, with its tumbleweeds still blowing across amber-yellow sand, but rather by what those seek out of America, whether it is the ecological maw of Vault 22 or the cross-species harmony of Jacobstown. Cowboy-mythicism and destiny remain encouraged, but the dreams of the Mojave take higher ground; normal life feels somehow close to being realized even in the harshness surrounding it. What’s left in order to achieve it isn’t to be completed by a heir to legends, but a stranger with no ultimate expectations other than the inevitability of the Mojave tugging their feet away into barren land again.