Fallout: New Vegas is one of the post-apocalyptic RPG series' most beloved installments. While any Fallout fan knows that the games take place after a nuclear war between the United States and China in the late 21st century, keeping track of the specifics of the Fallout timeline is no easy task.
To make matters trickier, unlike The Elder Scrolls, there's a lot of overlap between events in Fallout, with many of them taking place simultaneously across the vast American wasteland. Fallout: New Vegas' status as a spin-off, developed by Obsidian Entertainment instead of Bethesda, also helps muddy the waters, but there is indeed a timeline.
WW2 To The Great War
The Fallout timeline officially diverges from the real timeline roughly around World War 2, though there are some events like the alien abduction of the historical characters seen in Fallout 3's Mothership Zeta DLC which take place beforehand. Eventually, the timeline divergence leads to the Great War of 2077, which is the main inciting incident of the Fallout universe. Over the course of just two hours, much of human civilization was destroyed. Some humans were able to shelter themselves in Vaults, while others were transformed into Fallout's Ghouls by the radiation.
It is between World War 2 and the Great War that New Vegas' Robert House, AKA Mr. House, rises to power. Born in 2020, House attended the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, founding RobCo Industries while he was still a young man. A mathematical genius, House began running computer programs to predict some major events in the markets and political landscape. RobCo was hugely successful, producing iconic inventions from the Pip-Boy to Liberty Prime.
House predicted the likelihood of a devastating nuclear war long before the bombs dropped. By 2065. House was convinced that civilization had under 15 years left, and in 2077, he was proven correct. In the meantime, Mr. House created a sophisticated array of lasers which would shoot down any missiles approaching Las Vegas. To save himself he created a hibernation chamber which connected him to a supercomputer, essentially rendering himself immortal.
Though some nuclear missiles still made it past House's system due to power outages, Las Vegas was spared 68 out of the 77 warheads sent its way in 2077. These outages also sent House into a coma which lasted for decades. He would only wake up again in 2138, making himself known in 2274 when NCR scouts reached Hoover Dam to prevent the annexation of "New" Vegas. House's top priority became recovering the Platinum Chip, which he had created in 2077 to upgrade his Securitrons but had lost possession of during the war.
The Rise Of The NCR And Caesar's Legion
The New California Republic was founded in 2186 in the town of Shady Sands, established by the survivors who emerged from Vault 15 around 2097, just two decades after the end of the war. In 2189 the NCR was officially declared a nation with five separate states: Shady, Hub, Maxson, Dayglow, and Los Angeles. The Republic was founded with humanitarian values and a nostalgia for the pre-War American democracy.
Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4 all take place in the late 23rd century. The main events of Fallout 3 take place in 2277, the main events of New Vegas in 2281, and Fallout 4 in 2287. By 2281, the NCR had changed considerably. Under President Aaron Kimball, the NCR began to show the expansionist and imperialist qualities that helped lead to the Great War, making moves to annex New Vegas.
In 2246, the Followers of the Apocalypse sent a group including Edward Sallow and Mormon missionary Joshua Graham to the Grand Canyon to study the languages of the tribes there. They were captured by the Blackfoot tribe, and in order to save the group, Sallow began teaching the tribe about firearms and military tactics. Realizing they could use this knowledge to take over their rival tribes, the Blackfoot tribe made Sallow their leader and he took a new name, Caesar.
Joshua Graham was made the Malpais Legate, and the duo formed a new faction, Caesar's Legion, which then began expanding eastward with an almost unstoppable slave army. In 2271 NCR President Kimball signed the Ranger Unification Treaty, bringing Nevada's rangers into the NCR in an attempt to push back the Legion's tide.
When the Legion were lured into a trap at Boulder City during the First Battle of Hoover Dam in 2277, Ceasar had Graham covered in pitch, set on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. He survived, becoming a quasi-legendary figure known as the Burned Man, and eventually setting of the events of New Vegas' Honest Hearts DLC. Graham was replaced by Legate Lanius, who conquered several more tribes in the east in a brutal campaign to bolster the Legion's forces for a second attack on Hoover Dam. That same year, the person who would become known as "the Courier" unwittingly delivered nuclear launch codes to Hopeville. Afterwards several nuclear devices were detonated once again, destroying Hopeville and Ashton and creating "The Divide".
Enter The Courier
Mr. House's agents finally recovered the Platinum Chip in 2281. Determined not to lose it again, he had several different deliveries made across the Mojave Wasteland as decoys. The chip was set to be delivered by the Courier, the player character of New Vegas, when they were captured, shot in the head, and buried in a shallow grave by Benny, who hoped to use the Chip to take over New Vegas himself.
It is on 8am on October 19, 2081, that the Courier wakes up in Doc Mitchell's office after miraculously surviving a 9mm round to the head. The Second Battle of Hoover Dam canonically takes place in 2282, 5 years before the Sole Survivor would wake up from cryogenic sleep in Boston to begin the events of Fallout 4.
Fallout: New Vegas is available now on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.