FNV Parting Thoughts

2024-09-23

(also migrated from site attempt 1)

Well I finally did it. I actually, honest to god, finished a Bethesda-style game. And naturally, it wasn't one Bethesda actually made. It's not that I don't like how Bethesda was doing it in that era. I played godknows how many hours of Oblivion back in high school, just never actually got around to beating it. Same goes for Skyrim. And I've started New Vegas without finishing it before too. Maybe it's less the Obsidian touch and more that I'm properly medicated for ADHD these days.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time. Here's the quick hits:

It all still stands together, even if it's more lib/libertarian than I wish it was. Need a mod for a Followers ending. Not that I'll ever play it again probably, or at least not for a good long time.

I said Dead Money was going to be the bulk of this, and so here we go. When I was figuring out the order I should play the DLCs in, I saw an old post from someone that was pretty verbatim "does anyone even like Dead Money?" I'm sure this was mostly Steam forum comments being Steam forum comments, but it stuck in my head, set my expectations that I was going to play the worst one first and then progress eventually to DLCs worth doing.

That was so goddamn wrong. Dead Money isn't perfect, but I think it does an incredible job stretching and squashing the Fallout formula into the form of a survival horror game. I think a lot of the ways it feels a little off are the same ways that even flagship franchises in the genre tend to have trouble. I was tense in the beginning, and mowing down enemies by the end. My resources were tight and dangerously low until they weren't. The companions and villains were fun and interesting, and not to give a pass to the genre, but no more problematic about mental health than like. Anyone else doing it. Not to make it about the failures, but I think they make it clear that for better or for worse, they did the damn thing.

The part that really stood out to me were the ways it merged first-person, open-world RPG and survival horror. It completely changed how I made decisions around leveling up and how I was building my character. The scrounging through every cupboard felt fresh and necessary again, at least for a while. Dialogue choices felt like they had real impacts in terms of how things went with the companions and what that meant for your chances of survival. Crafting, for perhaps the first and last time, felt meaningful. The moment I realized that I could turn the mediocre knives I was finding everywhere into an extremely effective weapon if I found enough ductape and kitchen cleaner completely changed my relationship to the environment. I guess Fallout 4 managed a similar thing periodically, but it really made the detritus of the past so much more interesting by making it practical to sort through for things other than cash and ammo.

Playing Dead Money in 2024 has of course given me different feelings than it would have a decade ago. One reason is that I've played more survival horror now than I had then, have things to judge it against. But the big difference to me is having the last 14 years of Obsidian to hold up next to it. Back then I would have been excited for what could be. Now I'm sitting here sad about what could have been. I've heard great things about Pillars of Eternity, I really enjoyed maybe 75% of Tyranny before my save file got so buggy it wouldn't open anymore. But I hold up something like The Outer Worlds, which is by most accounts, you know, fine I guess, and I think about what Obsidian could have made if they had decided to pursue this side path. I think there's something really special in Dead Money, and they clearly didn't have the time, budget, or tech to pull it off exactly to plan at the time. I'd give a lot to see them take a The Outer Worlds style fresh swing at Dead Money. I'm guessing they never will.

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