“We really focused a lot on the freedom to play the game the way you wanted” – Fallout: New Vegas director on Obsidian’s goals vs. bug reviews and Fallout 3 comparisons

Obsidian knew what awaited it while developing Fallout: New Vegas, but that didn’t stop it from sticking with it.

Despite how long games take to create these days, Fallout: New Vegas was on the opposite end of the spectrum, only taking 18 months to develop, which was too fast even then. The end result was heavily buggy, something Obsidian knew it would have to accept, but it also reused assets from Fallout 3, and in a recent interview with Edge (via GamesRadar), director Josh Sawyer knew that had to be the case. if it was going to be submitted, especially considering this could be his last chance to direct a Fallout game.

“I knew people would say, ‘Hey, this basically looks like Fallout 3.’ And there were a lot of complaints about bugs,” Sawyer said. “It was very frustrating because we were not unconscious, but you always have to prioritize things.” That’s not to say that any of this has stopped Obsidian from doing exactly what it set out to do, as one big thing the developer wanted to accomplish is making the game highly replayable. “All of our work focused on the intricacy and freedom of missions, the critical path, and faction alliances.

“Those are things that, if you only play once, you’ll be like ‘yeah, whatever, who cares?’ So it took people time [to] “Oh wow, you can actually go straight to the track.” Freedom was particularly important to Sawyer, as he noted that “you don’t even have to follow the critical path.” You can kill anyone in the game and the game takes that into account. “We really focused a lot on the freedom to play the game the way you wanted, and I think that’s what stood out over time.”

Since then, Fallout: New Vegas has obviously become a beloved entry in the series, and many are hoping that Obsidian will make a new Fallout after being acquired by Microsoft (although I think they’re probably a little busy making Avowed and The Outer Worlds). . these days).