Fallout: New Vegas could have been a very different game had it not been for console support, so reckons the open-world action RPG’s lead world builder Scott Everts.
In conversation with PCGamesN, Everts says game engine restrictions levied by consoles resulted in some neat ideas and features being cut.
“[Fallout: New Vegas] would have been a lot different if it was PC only,” Everts tells PCGN. “We had a lot of plans early on. Like, ‘Here’s where the water is stored, here’s where the farms are, here’s where the government is centralised’. We had it all planned out—it wasn’t just a bunch of random stuff.”
Everts continues, suggesting certain things that did make it into the final release had to be pared down, and that the Mojave Wasteland itself would’ve looked different in the end—with “more separate zones” and a “big wall around the whole thing.”
Everts also reckons the game’s oft-criticised performance issues would have been less glaring had the game been PC-only.
“We would have had fewer performance issues,” Everts adds rather explicitly. “We did break it up a bit, but from my point of view it was a performance-related game and we had to fix things.”
What could have been, I suppose. Ah well, I guess we can instead console ourselves with New Vegas’ ever-impressive suite of neat player-made mods.