{"id":1632885,"date":"2026-07-13T21:07:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Lh3ZKkVwpAkbjivk8FpD9J"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:07:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:07:02","slug":"fallout-new-vegas-director-josh-sawyer-reveals-his-optimal-outcome-for-the-mojave-wasteland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/fallout-new-vegas-director-josh-sawyer-reveals-his-optimal-outcome-for-the-mojave-wasteland\/","title":{"rendered":"Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer reveals his optimal outcome for the Mojave Wasteland"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fallout: New Vegas<\/a> is a sprawling RPG filled with sketchy factions, greasy NPCs, rubbery morality, and tough decisions, all of which ultimately lead the player to one of four possible outcomes that share one thing in common: They’re not great. Which isn’t to say they’re not satisfying, just that there’s no optimal outcome where everybody’s happy and nobody gets hurt. The wasteland is a pretty crappy place, after all, so outcomes tend to be crappy too.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview on The Examined Game with Steven Lake<\/a>, New Vegas designer and director Josh Sawyer revealed his own personal ‘best of a bad lot’<\/em> pick for the endgame, and it’s independence all the way.<\/p>\n

“It is very hard. I mean, some people would say like, I love Caesar, and great,” Sawyer said. “But it’s kind of hard to hand everything over to an individual like Caesar or Mr. House. It feels dangerous. And then with NCR, you just realize like, man, they got a lot of problems. Like, they have a lot of problems right now<\/em>. They’re doing things for a lot of very questionable reasons.<\/p>\n

“Even if you find people that you feel are very virtuous and and are sacrificing a lot to fight in the Mojave and not because they’re trying to be imperialistic, even though NCR is being very imperialistic, it’s difficult to wrestle with that and come away and say like, yeah, I think NCR is great.”<\/p>\n

For Sawyer, then\u2014and most players, apparently\u2014an independent New Vegas is the least worst choice. “I know it’s going to be dysfunctional, I know it’s going to be bureaucratic, I know there’s going to be corruption\u2014but also it hasn’t been tried yet, right? Like we haven’t organized this yet, so let’s give it a try.”<\/p>\n

Sawyer said Obsidian tried to portray independence as having its own “drawbacks of dysfunction,” arising from the proliferation of bureaucracy and the corruption that inevitably follows. Even so, I think I have to agree that it’s probably the way to go: If there’s one thing history keeps on trying to teach us, it’s that handing the keys to an unstable autocrat or a fascist military superpower (or, god forbid, both at the same time) never goes well.<\/p>\n

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