Fallout: New Vegas–Inside the New Videogame

Many videogames strive for gravitas, but few channel it like Fallout. The series began in the late ’90s as a role-playing game featuring mutants and technology instead of dragons and magic, but has grown into a fascinating speculative vision of America after a nuclear apocalypse. In 2008’s Fallout 3, players roamed freely across a ruined Washington, D.C., finding themselves in the middle of allegorical conflicts small and big. The new Fallout: New Vegas returns the series to its original West Coast setting, and to the hands of some of its original creators.
We spoke with Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment, the developer of the game, about history, culture, and television in New Vegas.
What feels Fallout, and what doesn’t feel Fallout, to you?
Feargus Urquhart: One thing we focus on is to make sure that we keep that blend of post-apocalyptic feel with the super-Fifties feel. It’s vacuum tubes rather than too many transistors. Instead of motherboards, not that you won’t see circuitry; it just wouldn’t be like if you opened up your computer nowadays. This idea that things are rounded rather than squared off. There’s a certain artistic, design sense that we stick with, and make sure that we continue to follow through with.
There was a good response in Fallout to some of the pop-culture references. We went overboard in Fallout 2. In Fallout: New Vegas, for the most part it’s no; there is no pop-culture reference. Keep the player in the game. That’s one of the big differences between the early Fallouts, and Fallout 3 and New Vegas. They’re much more “I’m in the world.” It’s less that I’m playing a game and more that I’m experiencing something.
New Vegas uses the same engine as Fallout 3, and looks outwardly similar. What are the fundamental ways that New Vegas differs from Fallout 3?
The DC wasteland in Fallout 3 has this green-gray-brown color. Brown is maybe—it had a definite look about it. When we brought it over, we said, let’s make it feel like Southwest. We have blue skies, instead of the more smoky, gray skies. The sun is very bright. There’s tumbleweed; there are Joshua trees.
On top of that, one of the things we put in was this hardcore mode, which changes a lot of the rules of the game. Healing with stimpaks, instead of happening instantly, happens over time. It sounds like a simple change, but totally changes how you think about fighting in the game. You can actually dehydrate, and you can starve. You have to think about, where can I get water, and how can I get food, and I have to manage my radiation, because a lot of the things in the wasteland are irradiated.
All of your Fallout games have been based on the West Coast. What is the appeal of the West Coast?
That’s a good question. Because we live out here? Because it was going to be based on the United States—and it was going to be based upon the “real world”—it’s more comfortable to do something where you’re more knowledgeable about the area. If we had put Fallout in DC, we just don’t know that area at all. We don’t know what freeways people actually take and what freeways they don’t actually take. We don’t use the subway here.
Out here, the desert feels like a wasteland. A lot of the early inspiration for some of the Fallout stuff was Road Warrior. And when we think of the desert, the Mojave Desert and things like that are what we immediately think about. One of the areas in Fallout is the L.A. Boneyard. Obviously it’s Los Angeles, but it’s irradiated. In the Boneyard there’s more of a gang presence. That goes with the fact that people associate gangs with L.A. It’s probably just things like that.
What’s the appeal of the Fifties? Of that look, that era of American history?
It’s inherently sarcastic, in some ways. You get to use the Vault Boy, who we based upon the Monopoly guy. You can put him in these situations where he has his fist up, and he’s smiling, and he’s got his foot on someone’s neck. What was always interesting about the Fifties is, it’s got this feeling that everyone was happy and smiling, and it’s Leave It to Beaver. You can contrast that, within the same image, with really bad things.
Also, of course, it was in the Fifties that—that’s when there were all these fallout shelters. That’s when there was this duck-and-cover, and all those kinds of things. And so [we imagined] the Fifties just kept on going. The United States and the world didn’t really evolve from the Fifties. What would it look like?
What’s your exposure to the Fifties culture? Do you feel that most of your audience have a general awareness of it?
I think it’s a lot of different things. I think it’s a general awareness; you know what a Fifties car looks like. That kind of big GM, that big Chevrolet car. I’m 40, so I’m a different generation, but when I was growing up, Happy Days was still on the TV. Weirdly enough, the Fifties kind of continued in mine and some of older people’s heads. Happy Days was on, and it wouldn’t seem to go away from the TV. That was a connection. Reruns of Leave It to Beaver. M*A*S*H.
It was TV. TV kept the Fifties alive while we were growing up, through primarily sitcoms. And then there’s just the sense of poodle skirts, and American Graffiti, and Grease, and things like that. The Fifties didn’t go away, and it was supposed to be this idealized part of American history. We get to create that contrast—we take this idealized view of this period of America, and contrast it with World War III, and these horrible things that are happening. I just think that creates an interesting image.
What is one interesting vignette or sight to be seen in New Vegas?
Day or night, you get to a high point in the basin. If you spin around, you’ll see the crazy casino lights of Vegas off in the distance. It really gives you this sense of, that’s where I’m trying to get to. It feels like there is this bustling, alive area of humanity off in the distance, which contrasts with what is currently right around you—which is a little bit different than the other Fallout games.
Fallout 3 drew a really vivid picture of Washington, D.C. and was in some ways a rumination on American patriotism and our national identity. Where can we find some of the commentary in New Vegas?
The New California Republic are trying to be the new American government, the way that the government was. And they’re bureaucratic, and it’s difficult for them to make decisions quickly. There’s Caesar’s Legion, which is acting like the old Roman empire, in which they storm across the wasteland. They capture tribes, and they make them Romans. They lose their identity of whatever tribe they were. Immediately people go, they’re totally evil, and they’re just killing people. But people now get to be a part of this society in which they’re taken care of.
You can look at each of the different groups that you can talk to, and side with. They comment upon an aspect of things the United States have done, or other governments, or things in the past, just to make people think. I guess the main statement is, the initial feeling that you get from interacting with that group—it’s deeper than that. And how they really are is something you need to think about more.
What is the appeal of the apocalypse for a game?
It simplifies the rules for people. Our lives are complicated, and they’re—do I do this, do I do that, do I put this in my 401k, should I go to my daughter’s recital or not, should I—our lives are filled with 400 million questions every day about what we should and shouldn’t do. The apocalypse is interesting because it simplifies that all. It becomes about survival, it becomes about saving the people that you’re close to. I think in people’s minds, it wipes away all that burden that comes with being an industrialized society. In movies and in games, it clears away all the other stuff and just makes it about, how do I make it to the end of the day.
What were the influences you took from the cinema, or film, or television?
What we really tried to do, particularly when it came to Vegas, was look at the feeling. One of the key things we used was this idea of the Rat Pack—Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin, and Sinatra; and we made sure that we got a sense of them. Looking at the old Ocean’s Eleven movie, or the most recent one, and getting that feeling for the era.
We definitely have our Howard Hughes-like character called Mr. House. It was going in and researching and understanding Howard Hughes’ impact on Vegas, and how we could use that in an interesting way. If you tie all that stuff together, that’s really what tied Vegas together so many years ago. Doing so in the game should make it feel even more like Vegas.