Following the discovery of an early build of Obsidianโs brilliant Fallout New Vegas on a Xbox 360 devkit, modders of the 14-year-old RPG are bringing cut content and beta ideas back to the game with a host of new mods.
Last month, YouTube channel Gamesโ Past discovered a pre-release build of Obsidianโs RPG from just a single month before launch. 2GB larger than its launch day release, the early build featured a host of minor changes and larger additions that were scrapped just weeks before release.
Now, modders are working to restore as much of this content as possible after the YouTuber game preservationists released the gameโs PDBs to reverse-engineer the cut content. One of the main mods driven by the new beta discovery is Marilyn Restored, a mod that restores Mr Houseโs cut securitron Marilyn, obviously inspired by Marilyn Monroe, with voice lines present in the beta build.
At the time of writing, that same modder has also uploaded cut lines for Alexus, the Jailer in Ceaserโs Legion; restored Papa Khanโs unused armour, restored the nametag on Arcadeโs coat, and restores the trash cans in the Lucky 38 that were seemingly cut for console performance reasons.
One modder has gone ahead and restored the beta version of the intro town of Goodsprings with cut houses, as well as restoring the Nipton Train Station that was cut during the final stage of development.
Thereโs also a restoration mod for the beta version of Mr House, who looks a lot more like Steve Buscemi than the more clean-cut sleazebag we see in the finished game. Additionally, that same modder has restored the beta map for your pip boy as well as reintroduced the earlier level up and death sounds that were changed last-miniute.
Thereโs a collection of other mods as well which aim to bring as much cut content back to the game as possible. In fact, thereโs a โBeta Restoredโ collection for Fallout New Vegas on Nexus Mods that you can find right here, and is being updated with additional cut content mods as they arrive.
At the time of writing, the major mods that should come from this buildโsuch as a few cut quests and other additionsโhave not been modded in yet. For example, within the build, an hour-and-a-half of dialogue lines for Ulysses as a companion were discovered in the beta, but they need to be recorded by a voice actor and properly implemented into the game, which would take a long time.
Obsidian RPGs of this era are almost infamous for the amount of cut content they truly have. Prior to Fallout New Vegas, the studioโs Knights of the Old Republic 2 was filled with scrapped missions, dialogue and companions that took fans years to make playable. I wonder if the new Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic will suffer a similar fate.
For more Fallout news, read about New Vegas lead writer John Gonzales thoughts on Amazonโs TV series adaptation. Additionally, read about the modder bringing full ray-tracing to New Vegas in a very ambitious new mod.



