It may have taken what feels like a lifetime, but we are finally going to get our hands on an official remaster of Fallout: New Vegas. For over a decade, the game has been considered to be one of the best RPGs ever made, but many people may have forgotten what a buggy mess it was both at launch and even now.
There are inconsistencies with NPCs and strange mobility quirks, and a whole host of other glitches that add a lot of charm to an already fantastic experience. So while the remaster should look to iron out some of the more game-breaking ones, it would be great to see a few fan-favorites left intact.
The Doc Mitchell Bug
More Infamous Than The Game Itself
Details:
- The first encounter in the entire game
- Often cited as one of the most iconic bugs ever
Within the first 10 minutes of any New Vegas playthrough, before you have even really played the game, the good Doc Mitchell’s head can go for a wander. It will snap or rotate around in a way that was clearly never intended, and for many, myself included, it serves as a core memory for the entire experience.
Nearly every longtime player has a screenshot or a story about it, with the glitch becoming a shared rite of passage that feels about as special as the game itself. It also speaks to the ambitious yet janky nature of NV, and my hope is that in the remaster, we at least get some kind of callback to this iconic moment.
NPC Inconsistencies
No Barrier Can Hold Them
Details:
- NPCs can clip outside of cells and rooms
- Dead NPCs can still be interacted with
New Vegas’s world occasionally forgets its own rules. NPCs meant to stay locked inside cells or other rooms can sometimes spawn outside them entirely, wandering the wasteland where they were never meant to go, but still acting as if they were still confined.
In other cases, you can actually talk with a character who is already dead, with the game clearly showing a corpse or even a standing person, yet still letting you engage with it as if nothing happened. These moments break your immersion in the most memorable way possible, and stand as the perfect example of how much more open the simulation is in the game, rather than it following a strict script from start to finish.
Ragdoll Physics
Launching Into The Skybox
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Image via Bethesda Softworks -
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Details:
- Corpses can launch from even small amounts of damage
- Staple of funny moments for over a decade
Ragdolls have been the poster child for comedic bugs in gaming ever since they were introduced, and NV has some of the silliest in the whole industry. If you kill an enemy at just the right angle, whether with a rocket or even a melee weapon, then they can go flying, rocketing across the map in the blink of an eye.
In other games where it may seem embarrassing to have such a blatant break in realism, here, players have embraced it as yet another of the RPG’s lovable quirks. Smoothing it out would remove so many of those funny compilations, and I, for one, would be incredibly sad to see the tradition of corpse launches fade into obscurity.
Conversation Glitches
They Have Better Things To Do
Details:
- NPCs can t-pose while talking
- Characters will walk in place or run away in the middle of a conversation
Dialogue is a massive part of New Vegas, and there are so many memorable characters and interactions that it is hard to pick a favorite. However, due to how abundant the conversations are, bugs are almost a certainty, and in a lot of situations, the NPCs can go haywire, T-posing, repeating animations, or just walking off into the sunset, all while keeping the voice lines coming.
It’s unsettling in the way only early-2010s gaming can be, and it’s become part of the franchise’s appeal, where at any moment the intensity can be broken up by laughter. And while you could consider these bugs a flaw, I would argue that many see them as just another important piece of an imperfect puzzle.
Reload Dash
A Speedrunner’s Dream
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Image via Bethesda Softworks -
Details:
- Core movement tech used in speedruns
- Achieved by canceling reloads and Pip-Boy animations
Speedrunning has been around for decades at this point, with runners pushing everything, from Mario to Microsoft Excel, to its absolute mechanical limit. For New Vegas, speedruns have become a large part of its long-term appeal, as this 50+ hour RPG has been conquered in under eight minutes thanks to a handy bug known as the reload dash.
The basic idea is that, using a specific kind of weapon, usually a revolver, you can open the Pip-Boy mid-reload and unequip the gun, which results in a massive surge of forward motion. It’s fringe enough that it doesn’t break the rest of the experience, but I see it as an important tool within the game that the devs should retain to let a whole new generation of runners take a crack at the record.
