Something Old, Something New: A Look at Fallout 4: New Vegas

Any fan of the Fallout series is well aware of Fallout: New Vegas and the community acclaim it has generated over the years; similarly, anyone who has tried to play the game in the last decade has felt the urge to rip out their hair when the game can barely go four minutes without crashing. With developer Bethesda showing no intention of remastering the title any time soon, most fans have settled for the buggy cult classic.

Some fans, however, seem to have dreamed bigger. Enter the Fallout 4: New Vegas modding team. Fallout 4, one of the most actively modded games on the market, is now serving as the foundations for a community recreation of the original New Vegas, a project dedicated to preserving the spirit of the original game while inserting the visual, gameplay, and stability improvements the later entries in the series have since refined.

In the last week, the Fallout: New Vegas team has released a preview of the remastered Courier entering the Legion-decimated town of Nipton, a memorable moment from the original game. With all elements of the scene completely rebuilt by the modders, the in-progress results are looking promising.
 

The Development Team

The Fallout 4: New Vegas modding team has been actively working on this project since at least 2017, providing weekly updates regarding their progress on their Facebook page. Earlier this year they released another video update regarding introductory character creation. Fans of the series will recall the inkblot tests with Doc Mitchell; well, it seems that these modders are just as interested in updating the game as they are in preserving it, as one of these inkblot tests has been changed to the community joke of "two bears high-fiving", a change that gathered a few chuckles in the comments. While the extent of how many changes the development team may make has yet to be seen, it seems like they are managing to walk the fine line between community in-joking and faithful preservation.

While the project is being worked on, the various assets being created for Fallout 4: New Vegas are often made available on various modding hubs for Fallout 4, for those who want to get a crack at the nostalgic goodies a bit early. For those who consider themselves modding-savvy, it appears that the team is actively recruiting modelers, voice actors, and various other positions for the community-run project. Of course, the management of the project has been quite insistent that no money is to change hands at any point during this process; this means any work being done on the project is volunteer, and no money is to be donated to the team. Considering how easy it would be for Bethesda to shut down this whole operation for various legal infringements, it seems like they're attempting to play this as safe as possible.

Expectations for the Future

Now, for someone checking out the preview videos and hoping this signifies a rapidly approaching release, it'd be healthy to temper these expectations. The Fallout 4: New Vegas team has announced no anticipated release date beyond "it'll be done when it's done". Seeing as this project has been underway since 2017, it'll likely be another few years until fans see anything close to a finished release. A major stumbling block for the team has been their need to redub all of the game's voice lines; seeing as the original New Vegas established a world record for the most lines of dialogue in a single-player action role-playing game (boasting 65,000 lines), this is hardly a speedy process. However, for those interesting in watching the progress of the mod, the F4:NV team's Facebook page releases weekly updates regarding the most recent developments.

Fallout: New Vegas has long been a staple in the field of fan-favorite RPGs, and, if all goes well, Fallout fans have a nice treat to look forward to in the years to come.