For the next week, Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition will be 100% free on the Epic Games Store.
The free offerings from Epic every Thursday are hit or miss. Sometimes they offer up AAA iconic titles completely for free, and other times… well — not so much. Luckily for gamers, this week, Epic is serving up one of the most iconic titles of all time, Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition. The game will be free from May 25-June 1, 2023.
Choose Your Own Adventure
Creating a game with divergent storylines based on player decisions is a tough project. There are a ton of different scenarios and instances that you’ll need to set up, and these branching decision trees can end up making your game narrative look like a talent tree out of Path of Exile.
For this very reason, many developers stray away from the mechanic since it can expand what developers need to code exponentially, depending on how many player-made decisions are in the game.
The developers of Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian Entertainment, essentially said, “So what?” and created a game where the player can truly make their own decisions, all of which will impact the characters you meet throughout your journey.
Are you a battle-hardened looter just looking to make the next quick buck, or the altruistic hero archetype willing to do anything in the name of morality, even if it means losing a few caps?
Fallout: New Vegas Has Aged Well
Fallout: New Vegas was originally released over a decade ago, in 2010, but it still holds up as one of the best post-apocalyptic games ever created. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another game that lets the player have this level of narrative freedom.
I have fond memories of playing it shortly after it came out, and it’s one of the few games that I played over again and again — just to see how I could approach scenarios or situations differently. It’s also one of those games you can pick up five years after a playthrough and still have a unique and enjoyable experience.
In one save file, I was a vile villain who’d shoot you in the back just for a few materials and currency. In another, I was a saint — making decisions that often made the game harder but also resulted in a “good ending.”
While the combat and shooting system was never really the best, I’d argue that there are a ton of modern games where it’s actually worse. The VATS system that enables players to freeze time and snipe a certain part of the body feels like it belongs in the game and only serves to enhance combat scenarios that get hairy.
The graphics, too — really aren’t that bad for a game that’s older than a lot of Fortnite players. Though graphical feats like Fallout 4 and the upcoming Starfield blow New Vegas out of the water, it doesn’t feel like you’re necessarily playing a game from 2010.
To get Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition for free, visit the Epic Games Store. The Ultimate Edition comes with the base game and its expansions.
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