Do Gooder Press

A freakin’ heeyuuuge mod for Fallout New Vegas dropped over the weekend, called The Frontier. Here’s a little trailer:

Drivable vehicles! New power armor! Yao guai polar bears! And… they recommend starting with a new character. If you can get the game running first.

I loves me some New Vegas, and while I didn’t have the massive bugs that others reported when the game first came out, things have often gotten worse for players as time has passed. Bethesda’s Gamebryo engine is about as stable as an unpatched copy of Cyberpunk 2077 being run on a Nintendo Wii that’s been set on fire. This is often due to players adding an enormous library of mods coupled with running the game on technology that is to the poor 1’s and 0’s what a copy of Word is to users of cuneiform tablets.

If you’re not comfortable with using the NexusMods site and its Vortex mod-wrangling software, you might want to wait for the Steam version of the mod to come out. I’ve no idea when that’ll be, just “when it’s approved.” Even then, there’s no guarantee it’ll be headache-free. I had to poke at Vortex quite a bit and I still had issues with the game stuttering and losing half of its functionality sometimes when I’d get past a loading screen.

As all of the ancient saves I had were characters that were walking gods with armor and weapons that relied upon a plethora of mods, I think I have to start over if I want to play this new expansion. I know there are quick-start mods that will put me over the level I need to be for The Frontier to trigger, but where’s the fun in that?

A note: If you get it working, you’ll be able to tell it’s loaded thanks to a new loading screen, some new sound effects when you get optional quest objectives, and a new loading graphic: Instead of a roulette wheel, it’s the spinning chambers and muzzle of a revolver. Once you have that sorted, you have to be level 12 and have spent 12 in-game hours in the game (which can be done by just pressing the “wait” key and letting 12 hours go by in 12 seconds). You’re given the quest to visit the Frontier, and that’s about all I’ve seen thus far, so I can’t really spoil anything. I believe based on metrics like map area, weapons, quests, etc. it falls somewhere in between Fallout 3 and New Vegas for size and scope so be prepared to spend some time with this new game space.

As usual, I’m sure the people of the Mojave (and surrounding DLC lands) will be fine with your character leaving the fight over Hoover Dam and what-not for (probably) months to go trek off to Portland. It’s not like anyone else is going to show up to move things along, right? 🙂

Here’s a gameplay trailer for a hopefully-someday overhaul mod for Fallout 4 that lets you play Fallout New Vegas in F4’s game engine:

Also, since Microsoft now owns Bethesda Softworks as well as ineXile, that means they now run the two biggest post-apocalyptic role-playing game franchises, Fallout as well as Wasteland.

So I’m wondering how long until the Wasteland franchise becomes a West Coast prequel to the Fallout series? I mean, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing done to the lore, right?