Featured Image Credit: Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda’s Fallout: New Vegas remaster is underway, but while it may be a while before we see the game release, there are a bunch of changes we’d like to see made in the remaster.
Since the original Fallout: New Vegas had an infamous short development time, a lot of content in the final game ended up on the cutting room floor.
And while what we got in the end was an all-time classic, it’s a shame that some elements of the game did not fully reach their true potential as a result of this.
Nevertheless, with a bit more time and budget, here are some changes we’d like to see in the Fallout: New Vegas remaster.
With all DLCs installed, Fallout: New Vegas has a level cap of 50. Except, I never really felt like you needed those 50 levels. The game would give you more than enough skill points to max out quite a few attributes, making you quite overpowered in the endgame.
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Let’s say you were to reduce the level cap to, say, 25. That suddenly makes leveling up feel a lot more strategic, where you really need to think about where you’re investing your skill points. You won’t become an unstoppable machine by the end. Plus, with 25 levels you could go back to giving the player one perk choice every level, allowing you to have the same number of perks at a much more regular rate.
So, for the entirety of Fallout: New Vegas you spend time chasing after a conspiracy involving the Platinum Chip, siding with one of three factions (or none at all), and then fighting for control of Hoover Dam against these factions, only for the game to never really show you the fruits of your labour.
The game’s post-ending gameplay was part of the development’s famous time and budgetary issues, and it’s a big shame that you were never able to see how Nevada changes as a result of your actions throughout the story. This feels like the most unlikely wish on this list, but it’d be great to be able to see how each faction and location changes depending on your choices you made previously prior to getting an ending.
It’s a famous Bethesda trademark at this point that huge cities all feel rather unpopulated due to the lack of unique NPCs within them. While settlements such as The Elder Scrolls’ Imperial City and Starfield’s Neon all feel rather deserted despite huge commercial hubs in their respective worlds, Fallout’s towns often add to the bizarre post-apocalyptic vibe as a result of this.
Even so, we’d like to think that if there was anywhere, across any of the Fallout games, that deserves to be populated with loads of NPCs, it’s the New Vegas strip. This is a place where everyone from across the country comes to spend their hard-earned bottle caps, and it’d be great to see the place come alive with the addition of more characters on the strip and inside the casinos themselves.
It’s no secret that the inventory screen in Fallout: New Vegas can be a bit messy. There’s a huge variety in weapons, gear, consumables, and quest items that it’s sometimes really hard to sort through.
Having new ways to filter by item type, or having a more legible visual representation of your inventory would go a long way to improving Fallout: New Vegas’ inventory system. While you can hotkey items in the base game, also having a weapon wheel feels like it’d be right at home with the amount of equipment you can carry.
As a result of Fallout: New Vegas’ short development time, many more cuts were made to characters, questlines, and factions. One of the most notorious cuts is with the Caesar’s Legion faction, with the questline lacking the same attention to detail as the other ones.
It’d be cool to see some of this expanded upon, bringing you new interactions and quests if you decide to join up with the Legion. Especially the faction’s huge camp which remains inaccessible for much of the game.
Other opportunities lie in the narrative, where the group’s morals are portrayed to be fairly evil going by what you can witness in-game, but conversations with Caesar himself reveals much more moral greys at the centre of his worldview. Restoring some of this cut content may help to flesh out the Legion on a similar level to the other factions.
