Obsidian Explains Why Fallout New Vegas Has A Definitive Ending

Yes, the notorious “definitive ending” will be back for New Vegas. I know, you’re bummed that you can’t just keep roaming the wastes after the ending. Well, you’re gonna have to do your waste-roamin’ before you finish the game: there’s no turning back, and seemingly no plans for Broken-Steel like DLC to erase that definitive ending. Why? Let John Sawyer, project director, explain:

“We want to make it a definitive ending. Initially, we talked about trying to support post-game play, but because the changes that can happen at the end of the game are pretty major, this is what it basically came down to: either have the changes feel really major in the end slides and then have them not be very major after the end of the game, or make them really minor and not that impactful. And we feel it’s better to say, ‘you know what, we’re just going to end the game, and the changes you made can be minor or really really big, but because we can’t script all the changes to the Wasteland to let you keep playing, we’re just going to stop it there.’ But we do let the player know when that’s about to happen– a sort of, ‘the end of the game is coming, so we’re saving your game right now, so if you want to keep your game going, you can, otherwise, it’s about to be over.'”

And there you have it.