A lot of games offer the player control over the story. Problem is, most of them make the choices incredibly simple. Do you want to be a goody-two-shoes or do you want to kill everyone and salt the earth? Gee golly, mister, I wonder what to choose? I’ll really have to work my noggin over that one!
Now, games like these can still be fun and interesting. Just look at classics like Knights of the Old Republic, Bioshock, or Mass Effect. Sometimes simplicity can make for good entertainment.
But the best games present more complex choices. They ask questions without clear answers and force the players to choose. Those are the gaming narratives that really make you think and stick with you for years. Games like Disco Elysium and Baldur’s Gate 3, and the subject of today’s analysis: Fallout New Vegas.
For those of you unfamiliar with the game, let me set the stage. New Vegas is set in the post-nuclear remains of the Mojave desert, and the one city still standing within it: Vegas. Four factions are caught in a power struggle for both the city and Hoover Dam, an invaluable energy source. Only you, the Courier, can tip the scales and propel one faction to victory.
What makes this choice so interesting is that none of these factions are explicitly ‘good.’ In fact, all four of them are different flavors of awful! But at the same time, they’ve each got a few pros to go along with the long list of cons. You’re not just choosing good or bad; you’re choosing which political ideology you would put in charge of a post-nuclear world.
So, y’know. No pressure.
Let’s meet our contenders!
First up, the New California Republic. Upon first glance, they might seem like the good guys. A democracy out to restore America to its former glory, all beneath the flag of a two-headed bear. Obvious choice, right?
Wrong! The NCR’s forces are spread thin; everywhere you go, you’ll find troopers and traders alike complaining about their inability to govern. And for a ‘peaceful democracy,’ they sure love to kill anyone they don’t like, such as super mutants or the Brotherhood of Steel. Half of the questlines for the NCR involve you going and killing someone they see as a threat, diplomacy be damned.
They’re also blatant hypocrites. Many of their greatest ‘presidents’ were given the office by their parents, who themselves were in charge for over fifty years. I dunno about you, but that sounds more like a monarchy than a democratic republic to me.
Even their core concept is an abject failure. Their goal is to restore the American government to what it once was, to bring back Old World values. What they completely fail to realize is that it was that very system and those very values that brought the world to nuclear ruin in the first place! The system they’re fighting for has already failed once before. Who is to say they won’t fuck it up the same way again?
Okay, but what about the Legion? A totalitarian military dictatorship that crushes and absorbs all opposition to expand their empire, based on real-world ancient Rome. Men are made into mindless soldiers, brainwashed into thinking their own subjugation was for the best, and women are sold into slavery. Those who defy them are crucified and left for dead.
In any other game, the Legion would be the clear-cut bad guys. But not here. Brutal as they may be, the Legion does at least have peace in their lands. Traders unaffiliated with either faction prefers trading in Legion territory, since bandits don’t dare to attack for risk of being crucified. Their methods are messed up, but you can’t deny the results.
The core idea isn’t a bad one. The world was essentially brought back to nothing when the bombs dropped, so humanity has to rebuild from scratch. Taking inspiration from one of history’s longest lasting and most successful empires isn’t necessarily a bad idea.
Except for one simple flaw: Rome fell. It got too big and ultimately split itself apart. And if the Legion carries on as they are, they’ll do the same thing. You can even use this knowledge to talk down the final boss, convincing him not to attack the Dam lest he doom his own government to collapse.
Also, y’know, totalitarian dictatorships are objectively awful and evil.
On that note, let’s talk about our third choice: Mr. House. The man in charge of New Vegas at the start of the game, backed by an army of heavily armed autonomous robots. If you help him upgrade said army, he can become a power even greater than the NCR and the Legion.
House has got some big ambitions. He wants to kickstart human progress once again. Forget the wasteland, he wants to get back into space! The man touts himself as the best choice for Vegas, and he may be right. If he was smart enough to rig a machine to make himself nigh immortal, then maybe he can take humanity forward.
Just a few issues with that. One: by siding with House, you’re putting all your bets on one guy. And not a nice one, either. This guy is every bit the dictator that Caeser is, minus the brutality. House is narcissistic to a fault; all he wants is to feed his ego, everyone else be damned.
Which takes me to issue number two: House is very anti-government. He believes that man should rule himself. Survival of the fittest. So on and so forth. For all his grand ambitions, he has no plans whatsoever to actually improve conditions in the Mojave for anyone other than himself.
Hypocrites, psychopaths, and a narcissist. Not exactly a golden lineup. But those are the only choices you’re gonna get.
Well, there is one other option…
Yes Man is a robot programmed by Benny to help him overthrow House and take the Mojave for himself. After you deal with the checker-suited bastard however you please, his robot is yours to either crush or command. And no matter what you do, he won’t resist; he’s called Yes Man because he literally cannot say no to anything anyone tells him to do.
Siding with Yes Man is tantamount to putting yourself in charge. By doing so, you get to decide what happens to all the minor factions, such as the Boomers or the Brotherhood of Steel. But you’ll have to face both the NCR and the Legion at Hoover Dam, so hope you’re prepared for that.
All three other choices offer you a different form of government. Yes Man is the exact opposite. Siding with him means removing any and all systems of rule from the Mojave, thus bringing complete, absolute freedom.
There was a word for that… What was it…? Oh, yes! Anarchy!
Just one problem with that: the inhabitants of the Mojave aren’t exactly upstanding citizens. They’re not just gonna take hands and sing kumbaya together just because the Bear, the Bull, and the House are gone. There are good people in there, like the folks of Good Springs, but then there are the not good people, such as the Powder Gangers. For fuck’s sake, one of the casinos in Vegas itself is run by cannibals! Siding with Yes Man means letting them do whatever the hell they like without consequence.
So those are your choices. A ‘democratic republic’ too weak to rule. A totalitarian dictatorship doomed to self-destruct. An ego maniac with tunnel vision. Absolute anarchy. The only thing any of them have in common is their hatred for the others and the inability to see what’s wrong with themselves.
Pick your poison.
Or you could go a full Strength build and kill every single person in the wasteland. That’s always an option.
This is what makes New Vegas’ story so engaging. The game doesn’t present you with morally clear situations. Instead, it asks you questions and lets you decide what’s right or wrong. It’s not ‘pick the good guys and see the good thing happen.’ It makes you pick the political ideology you think would work best for a post-nuclear world. You experience the pros and cons of each system as you play, then choose which one will reign.
In recent years, we’ve seen a strong push for games that offer complete player freedom. Games where you can do what you want, choose what you want, and forge your own path. Games like Fallout: New Vegas. Just goes to show how insanely ahead of its time this game was.
Even if it runs like absolute ass. Bethesda’s engine is so bad even other devs can’t make the shit work.
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