RPGs are, at the end of the day, about role-playing, and everyone has their own ideas of how deep they want to dive into their particular role. Fallout New Vegas, Obsidian’s beloved 2011 RPG, is quite an accessible game, but many modders have turned the title into a hardcore survival game over the years.
Josh Sawyer, the production director and lead designer of Fallout New Vegas, recently addressed the issue of role-playing and difficulty in the latest episode of their ongoing YouTube series. When asked by a modder about the existence of granular difficulty options – something many games are doing nowadays, Sawyer admitted that it’s always great to offer these options so that anyone can jump into the role they want to inhabit.
“If it cost nothing, which it does not, then I would say let players in-game set their difficulty options however they like,” the iconic RPG designer said.
Sawyer also explained that it’s good to give modders the ability to design “whatever the heck they want”, If modders want to sift through data tables to design crushingly hard or fun and easy difficulty modes, that’s their prerogative. However, the designer admitted that it’s harder to “expose those things, especially on a data level” for more modern games.
Sawyer explained that, especially in RPGs, players jump into a world for myriad different reasons. “What are they trying to get out of this game?” is a question they ask often when designing a game, so much so that they boiled down Obsidian fans into three groups: Survivalists that focus on difficulty and mechanics; Adventurers who want to discover everything with a bit of a challenge; and Explorers who are there for a good time.
“In the end, giving more granular difficulty options is a very good thing,” the developer said. “I think we should prioritize it more—I think I should prioritize it more.”
While the difficulty modes in Fallout New Vegas weren’t as granular as some more modern titles, which let you change specific values for specific mechanics, there were a lot of options for a 2011 RPG. Alongside the main five difficulty modes, there was also Hardcoe Mode, which made the game a real challenge. These are the types of options that some players love.
As Sawyer explained, RPGs shouldn’t only offer mechanics to let you take on the role you want, but also to customise that role. So, you want to be a one man army taking out the scum of the Mojave? Okay. But how hard do you want that fight to be? Do you want to be Superman with a gun, or John McClane?
Fallout New Vegas is reportedly being remastered for a future release on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. While evidence of Fallout 3 Remastered has been found in official FTC documents, the existence of a New Vegas remaster is currently just resting on the word of trusted, but not always accurate, leakers.
