Fallout Remastered Vegas

 This wasn't a part of the deal!

Yes, I'm still madly and hopelessly in love with Fallout New Vegas, no I don't believe this irrational and frankly embarrassing obsession will ever truly be free of me and I absolutely have enough fuel to go nutso about the game itself once more. Because with the recent shifting of the gaming world that placed the creators of that masterpiece within the same conglomerate that owes the rights to making sequels, I can't help it if my little monkey brain keeps doing involuntary backflips of excitement. Every little sneeze out of Obsidian is now code in my head slowly unveiling the hexadecimal coordinates whereupon stands a buried box containing a geo-cache treasure hunt to the source of the river Amazon in order to find the prospective release date of a theoretical New Vegas 2 spray painted on the wall of a rainforest cavern. I can't help myself, I'm fully lost to total conspiracy nut mode.

Of course, it doesn't help my gentle sensibilities when Obsidian themselves are haphazardly waving around their intentions and suppositions about the many things they could do if the got the go ahead to make a New Vegas 2. Buzzing with the enthusiasm of a eager developer but unfortunately dripping with the candour of a team that most certainly aren't under any contract to keep a bubbling Fallout game under any sort of wraps. Still, with every slipped message into the internet ether the powers over at Obsidian ignites the dormant New Vegas fanbase like an electric whip across the snout of the slumbering dragon, and we cause enough of a stir with each awakening to remind Microsoft how much money they could be squeezing out of us if they just smooshed Bethesda together with their playpen partner for a little impromptu date. The sooner the better, Phil Harrison; none of us are getting any younger over here!

As such it was obviously going to become the topic of a blog when some off-handed comment thrown off the cuff of a speeding train impressed Obsidian's willingness to create a New Vegas remaster if permitted. Of course, I have some thoughts. Firstly: they're still thinking about us! Ain't Obsidian a bunch of softies... and secondly: Huh? What about New Vegas 2? The deal always was, at least as far as the world was aware, that Obsidian were ready to make one more new Fallout title within their trademark West Coast setting, reminding Bethesda once again about what makes this franchise special. New Vegas 2 was shorthand, such a game would obviously not be set in Vegas but somewhere else up the Golden Coast. Maybe San Francisco. But the point is that we were supposed to be getting excited for a new game, not a pampered up and repacked slug at ol' faithful.

The dark cynic bumbling away at the corners of my soul, prepped to wage his forever war against the optimism and hope to drag me back into that crushing pit of slick, suffocating despair, tells me that this is the product of tempered expectations. This almost sounds like the 'settle scenario' of a studio who vied for the contract to make a full blown Fallout game and were fobbed off, leaving them to seek this much more meagre consolation prize. Of course, I have nothing but my own paranoia to evidence for that, and perhaps such comments are more just the idle thoughts of another direction Obsidian could frame their relationship with modern Fallout; but it's all got me wondering nonetheless. Which means I'm also worrying. There's no reason Microsoft or Bethesda would straight turn down an absolute PR win like a Fallout New Vegas 2 announcement- is there?

Now the obvious question that is brought up with a topic like this is why on earth do we even need a remaster when we have mods. Since time immemorial Fallout New Vegas has boasted graphics enhancement mods and 2k retexture packs and ENB filters and Project Nevada and whatever the modern successor to Project Neveda is these days. The point is, you could totally spruce up New Vegas in a hundred different ways in order to get it looking spic and span for the modern hardware of today. I may be the only person in the history of man that likes the vanilla look and gameplay of New Vegas, but let me tell you I am in the extreme minority. Most New Vegas fans these days are playing builds of the game that look better than anything Obsidian could have dreamed of cooking up back in 2011. The players have already remastered the game.

However a Remaster could be an opportunity for the team to go to some of the weak points of the actual code behind New Vegas and patch up the ship. Improve the application beyond it's paltry RAM limit, improve general stability to reduce crashing frequency, and maybe throw a little foundation across the general visual aesthetic so that players who aren't me won't vomit everytime they load up the vanilla EXE. A Remake could go even further, building the game on an updated engine that could take advantage of the play features of modern Fallout. Sprinting, proper iron sights, snap corner aiming, hotbutton throwables- all the features that make Fallout 4 the best shooter in the franchise. Bringing that quality of gameplay to the quality narrative of New Vegas would be incredible! So incredible, in fact; that some fans are already trying to do that with the 'Fallout 4: New Vegas' mod. (Which I suppose would receive a swift 'cease and desist' if this idea gets the green light.)

In such a world, one where New Vegas is re-released and becomes the new 'most recent' Fallout in the franchise, we would see a vast recontextualization of what it means to be a Fallout fan. Know that the Fallout fandom of 2011 is a mere shadow compared to what it currently is today, and many modern fans have never engaged with any game before 4 to really understand what it is about the Fallout setting which makes it so fruitful and worth revisiting. Everytime Bethesda touch the franchise they focus on the least interesting part of the world most; the wasteland, whereas since Fallout 2, Black Isle Studios (Now Obsidian Game Studios) knew to make Fallout about the post apocalyptic society which has blossomed out of the fires. If you want gritty nuclear survival stories, play Wasteland. If you want quirky and bizarre fun-house mirror branches of post-world 'society' which run the gambit from utterly farcical to horrifyingly despotic and cruel- come to Fallout. With New Vegas thrust once more in the spotlight, I think a whole bevy of relatively recent franchise fans will endure their abrupt 'coming to Jesus' moment for Fallout.

Still, if you asked me what I hope for out of the Obsidian acquisition; it's New Vegas 2. I honestly don't care if Obsidian immediately turn around and go independent again the second after that theoretical game releases, I just need another great Fallout in my life sometime before I die or geopolitics swivel off in a direction that brings up towards an actual Fallout. Fans have been yearning for years, Bethesda (bless their hearts) have their attentions occupied elsewhere (to the stars for now); there really is no better course of action than to bring back the grandfathers for one last shot at the gold. For all the guff and rolled eyes that the professional reviewing industry gave New Vegas on it's launch, I'd like to see some small level of schadenfreude when that very same direction they jeered and mocked rears back around to be the new golden age of western action RPG games. Give us that opportunity, Microsoft; We beg!