A meta analysis of New Vegas

T

Tuffluck

First time out of the vault
I've been thinking about this for a little bit and I'd like to post my thoughts. I feel as though that there is a meta narrative of New Vegas that went over many people's heads.
Let me start with the main theme of New Vegas which is letting go and beginning again (one of the main themes at the least). House has the fantasy of a Vegas that he grew attached to. Whether or not he looks to the future, he is still stuck in the past of making MVGA, making Vegas great again. Caesar, for all of his knowledge and leadership prowess, still bases his Rome on the one that fell due to hedonism, degeneracy and apathy. The NCR considers themselves the inheritors of America, even with the intense corruption that caused the unrest and destruction of the world. Yes Man and subsequently you, if you choose, cling to this An-cap/Libertarian paradise that would emulate the likes of a newborn United States. Every DLC also heavily implies this theme.
But, now hear me out, the writers wanted to speak TO us, not WITH us. They are telling us to let the series go, and begin again. I have a feeling that New Vegas has an extreme meta to it that is telling us, the fans, Bethesda and everyone else to just let the series go. No amount of tinkering or mods will make the series what it was. We are holding this idea that Bethesda or nu-Obsidian can make a better or up-to-par Fallout game. We've latched onto the thought of "what if" rather than "what was." The past is the past and New Vegas is telling us to let it go. Listening to some of the songs on the in game radio fit many of the factions, but fit us, the player, most of all. Heartaches by the number talks about all the times we've been burned, all of the times we've been let down (Tactics, the failure of Van Burren, Brotherhood of Steel, 3). Johnny Guitar tells us about the man called Johnny Guitar and how there will never be another man like him (Fallout 1). Begin Again sings to us about starting over, night after night after night in a vain hope of finding what we are looking for but in the end we must let go.
I know this sounds like one big fat blackpill, but I find this worthy of analyzing, whether intentional or not.
 
I never really thought about it from a meta perspective before, but that does make a lot of sense. Still, I think Obsidian would love the chance to work on another Fallout game though.
 
Interesting thoughts but ... there can be no doubts about it that Obsidian DEFINETLY would give us a MUCH better Fallout if hey had full controll over, it and I would take a game by them any time over Bethesda.
 
I think it might have been a message for themselves. Since they need to let go of the franchise "they" created and became the abomination on other company's hands.
This was it, the last goodbye from Obsidian to Fallout, the game was them letting it go. A final farewell to their prodigy child that became a poor shadow of itself.

But now most people who worked on the classic Fallout games left Obsidian, so who knows if the new people will try and make a new Fallout. I think they won't though, I doubt they would want to make a RPG using the FO4 system. But Obsidian is known for taking desperate chances for some money...
As much as I like their games, as a company their management sucks.
 
Risewild said:
I think it might have been a message for themselves. Since they need to let go of the franchise "they" created and became the abomination on other company's hands.
This was it, the last goodbye from Obsidian to Fallout, the game was them letting it go. A final farewell to their prodigy child that became a poor shadow of itself.

But now most people who worked on the classic Fallout games left Obsidian, so who knows if the new people will try and make a new Fallout. I think they won't though, I doubt they would want to make a RPG using the FO4 system. But Obsidian is known for taking desperate chances for some money...
As much as I like their games, as a company their management sucks.
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I would attribute much of their short comings on time constraints, overestimation of the project at hand and their contractors bending them over a railing at every chance. KOTOR II fell into the same trap that New Vegas fell into with Lucas Arts pushing them to a Christmas release thus making them cut some really amazing and well thought out ideas. A little off topic that was.
Now onto what you said, the more I think about it, I feel like it was a goodbye letter to the series. You could tell in their voices during interviews at E3 and etc that they were worn out and truly believed in what they were creating. When you hear Todd Howard and the Pete Heresy talk about Fallout it sounds more like they are releasing a tech demo. It's disgraceful.

Now that I have had time to think more, I would like to point out more evidence that they intended the meta for the fans. Songs are all well and good, but the companions themselves embody older Fallout fans. Cass is the daughter of, well, Cassidy. Arcade is the son of one of the Enclave during Fallout 2. Marcus is Marcus. They all have things in common. They had something and it was taken from them, rather forcefully, and in defiance to change, they either held onto a dying title (Fallout 1/2), hid their history and tried to start anew (fans that hailed 3 as a beacon of RPGs) and tried to recreate a part of their past even though their problems stemmed from what they tried to accomplish (fans that desperately tried to recreate the feeling of older games by undertaking projects that would never get finished). This could also be attributed to Obsidian, but two characters are out of place there. Cass and Arcade. They focus more on the past and those that stubbornly hold to it or try to sweep it under the rug.
The other characters, I might add, embody newer fans to the series. Veronica has the naivety of the Fallout 3 fan that went to NV expecting the BOS to be the Knights in Shining armor, only to find out that change is uphill battle. Raul tells stories of the olden days, and depending on how you see it, he could either embrace his past and help fight for the future (older fans) or keep telling his stories to those that will listen to him (newer fans curious about the series origins). Boone is pretty self explanatory. He's out on the hunt and will slaughter those who even slightly agree with the people that took his beloved from him (Older fans with a vengeance against Bethesda). I don't want to write a novel, so I will let you extrapolate what the others mean based on this pattern that I have found within the major characters.
 
I understood there was a meta narrative.
I thought that the opening was like 'interplay getting shot and coming back as Obsidian'.
 
Similar interpretations have been floating around the web, few times posted here on NMA. I'm not sure if this is a meta narrative, or if simply Obsidian developed the game based around that central theme. Could it be inspired by real world events surrounding the franchise? Absolutely. But we can't really know for sure.
Either way, New Vegas has a lot of depth to it and can be interpreted and analyzed in many ways.
 
The general central theme of attachment to the past and trying to recreate it is not a message to fans or Bethesda for that matter. It's simply Obsidian exploring the theme of nostalgia and constant retreading of history that seems endemic to the human condition. It naturally ties in with the arc words, "War Never Changes."
 
Ranger117 said:
The idea of letting go, I wish I knew that before being sucked into the Fallout 4 release.
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Honestly if you bought the game that's on you. I was psyched by the first trailer that came out just before E3 but after seeing what they did with it after E3 was over I knew they had goofed up.
 
Yeah, I hadn't seen the perk system trailers, saw the cartoons some of the wander trailers and went that looks good. I even purchased the originals to have a complete fallout play through, that led me to the startling conclusion Fallout 3 was shit (when you only have two fallout games you don't really see it Fallout NV and Three in my case)
When the game came I was still optimistic, it was a week after Halo 5, so when I turned it on and played the first two hours I was imminently disappointed.
I cancelled any pre-orders I had for a game and been trying to seek better reviewers (MrCaption, TWterminator and Retrospective Gaming)
 
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