Highlights
- Fallout: New Vegas had a rocky launch with bugs and glitches, but subsequent patches and DLC improved the game's overall experience.
- Many fans consider Fallout: New Vegas the best game in the franchise due to its intricate narrative, complex characters, and player choices that impact the game's outcomes.
- The likelihood of a Fallout: New Vegas sequel is currently slim as the developer, Obsidian Entertainment, is focused on other major projects, but fans continue to hope for its return.
Fallout: New Vegas was the first full franchise spin-off title since Bethesda took over the property. Unfortunately, the launch was something of a disaster, with numerous bugs and glitches bogging the project down. Bethesda and Obsidian would spend several months after patching Fallout: New Vegas and releasing further DLC for the troubled game, which paid off in the long term.
While the game had a less-than-stellar reception at launch, Fallout: New Vegas is often cited as the best game in the franchise. The circumstances of its development were unfortunate but showed that the property could be done justice in the hands of a developer outside of Bethesda's control. To this day, fans are still eager to see a direct sequel to the game made.
Why Fallout: New Vegas Is Still Beloved To This Day
The main reason why fans still want a sequel to the Fallout spinoff even 13 years later is actually very simple. The game is usually considered to be the best game in the series and fans are eager to see a more fully realized version of it come to life. The narrative of the game was dense and complicated and stretched all over the New Vegas area. The way players interacted with the various factions and characters in Fallout: New Vegas directly affected the game's endings as well as the fates of the individual communities spread throughout the region.
In addition, the characters of Fallout: New Vegas are often cited as the franchise's best. The vast majority of them are three-dimensional and none of them really come off as wholly 'good' in the traditional sense. While some groups like Caesar's Legion are undoubtedly more objectively evil than others, the game doesn't shy away from the fact that groups like the NCR or Mr. House are anything but angels.
The companion characters in Fallout: New Vegas are often the same way. Their backgrounds are commonly dense, complicated, and loaded with tragedy. Their personal quests also tend to throw curveballs at the players, resulting in endings and moral quandaries that are anything but black and white. All of this contributes to the fans' continued love of the game and why, even 13 years later, many of them want to see a sequel happen.
The Odds of Fallout: New Vegas 2 Happening
In 2018, Microsoft acquired both Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax Media. These acquisitions gave rise to a new hope that the developer may take another crack and the franchise and rumors began to circulate throughout 2022 that there were talks for the developer to take another shot at the property. At this stage, however, that seems rather unlikely.
Obsidian currently has two major projects in the works—Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2—which makes Fallout: New Vegas 2 far more unlikely at the moment. With the developer hard at work on both of these installments, it's hard to imagine that it could squeeze in a full Fallout: New Vegas sequel anytime soon, but fans may continue hoping for it to happen all the same.
With its dense narrative, three-dimensional characters, and choices that mattered, it's no surprise that fans want to see a Fallout: New Vegas sequel. Either way, it is unsure how long that would take to come to fruition. What is clear is that the desire for some kind of follow-up is still around even after all these years.
Fallout: New Vegas is available on PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
