Although these days Fallout: New Vegas is in contention for the title of best Fallout game and is a beloved RPG, generally, it wasn't as universally loved when it first came out back in 2010. You could argue its many technical shortcomings were the main factor weighing down its overall reception, but even the expansions that would later drop weren't all immediate hits with players or critics. Point is, it's safe to say Fallout: New Vegas was something of a sleeper hit for the series, and apparently, publisher Bethesda wasn't shy to highlight the game's initial failures directly to developer Obsidian in powerpoint slide format.
Fallout: New Vegas senior designer Chris Avellone recently sat down for a wide-ranging discussion with YouTuber TKs-Mantis (thanks, PC Gamer), and at one point the game's survival horror-tinged Dead Money DLC got brought up. Despite TKs-Mantis's praise, Avellone looked visibly conflicted, which prompted the YouTuber to ask for an explanation.
"The reason I'm making these expressions and hesitations about it is because, despite what I thought would be cool as an examination of Fallout, it was so different than the core experience that it obviously was a huge turn-off for a lot of people, and I completely understand that," Avellone said.
At that point, TKs-Mantis brushed off those concerns with a defiant, "Fuck 'em," which Avellone rebuffed.
"Uh, well, when it comes to sales and reviews, it matters," Avellone said, adding:
"Bethesda used review scores against us for the DLCs for, like, why they didn't want to keep doing things with us anyway. Even though they didn't wanna do anything anyway, so whatever."
It's very apparent throughout this three-and-a-half hour interview that Avellone harbors some unsettled feelings about his stay at Obsidian and Bethesda as a publisher and IP holder – and he's been vocal in the past about his less-than-amicable departure from the studio in 2015 – but assuming his account of this meeting with higher-ups about New Vegas is accurate, it's easy to see why things didn't work out.
"It was fun, it was fun. They had a whole powerpoint. Not even about the DLC, they had a whole powerpoint about all the things Obsidian did wrong, and we were like 'Wow!' and they showed it to us. And we were like… 'OK, this is hugely morale-boosting,'" said Avellone. "'I thought we did a good product for you guys that kept Fallout in the public consciousness, but you guys don't seem very happy about it despite the fact you reaped a lot of the rewards for it.'"
Of course, Bethesda would end up taking the series in-house once more for Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, with Obsidian moving on to eventually create original IP like Pillars of Eternity, The Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Pentiment. There was a time, long ago, when Obsidian had planned to make a Fallout: New Vegas 2, but that "quickly evaporated," per Avellone.
