“I think fans debate what their favourite one is, which is understandable,” Howard says. “I think it’s great that you can have a lot of factions and the fans say, ‘Oh, I like one or two or three or four, or Vegas or 76’ now, and so I think that’s really healthy for a franchise where people can say which one is their favourite.”
I’m sure Todd’s head canon is that there’s more of a debate than there actually is.
Dude, all the Fallout community is is debate.
We’re just doing our favorite thing: picking a side and trying to solve a conflict between multiple factions.
im not sure what this comment is trying to get at, ive never seen a game franchise more debated than fallout. ive seen every game labelled as someones favorite, including that awful brotherhood of steel game
Just about any game is someone’s favorite, but that doesn’t mean there’s a lot of debate. Fallout 4 and 76 appear to have reached an audience much larger than the rest of the series’ usual standards for copies sold, so the sense I get is that if you’re calling one of those your favorites, you most likely haven’t seen most of the rest of the series. I think 3 and 4 get a lot of criticism that may go too far, but the long and short of it is that the consensus is that Bethesda’s entries are not among the strongest in the series.
that may be your opinion but ive seen people who love fo3 but cant get into new vegas, who love 4 but cant get into 3 or new vegas, who love 76 because its online multiplayer and therefore not as big on the single player entries. theres endless debates about it. you may think its consensus but its not as clear cut as you think
hell theres fallout 1 purists who think that game is the ONLY fallout game
I’ve been on gaming forums for a long time, and I honestly can’t recall a single time I saw anything resembling an actual debate that people might like 3 more than New Vegas. I have seen debates of 3 vs. 4 and New Vegas vs. 1/2, but I’ve never come across a debate between people who’ve played more or less the entire series and preferred Bethesda’s games. Maybe that’s you, but this would be the first time.
I’ve absolutely seen people who like 3 more than NV. Hell, I might be among them.
Well you folks have been pretty quiet for 15 years. What’s the argument for 3 over New Vegas? Or 3 over 1/2?
I think it’s just new Vegas stans are very vocal lmao
Well, take this for what it’s worth since I’m personally the 1 > NV > 2 > 3 > 4 > Tactics/76 > BoS persuasion, so our preferences probably overlap and I might not be the best person to speak to why some prefer 3. But here’s my best take at why some people might genuinely prefer Fallout 3 over New Vegas.
1. The world is more exploration-friendly.
Fallout 3 drops you near the center of the map, uses fewer invisible walls, and basically lets you run in any direction from the moment you leave the vault. Some of those design choices come at the cost of immersion and a clear sense of progression, but for players who just want to wander and explore, 3 scratches that itch.
New Vegas, by contrast, funnels players through a “racetrack” loop that eventually leads you to the Strip, then sends you outward to deal with the major factions. This structure reinforces the narrative pacing and supports the game’s strong story design, but it does reduce the sense of open-ended freedom.
2. Fallout 3’s dungeons are more extensive.
Most of 3’s dungeons are longer, more combat-heavy, and offer more substantial looting/scavenging opportunities, including bobbleheads and unique gear. While New Vegas has brilliantly written locations (Looking at you Vault 11), many of its buildings amount to one or two rooms, largely due to the game’s famously short development cycle.
For players who enjoy the simple rhythm of clearing out big spaces and gathering loot, Fallout 3 offers more of that classic “delve and scavenge” gameplay, even if its combat system is fairly “mid”.
3. The atmosphere feels more traditionally “post-apocalyptic.”
This one is entirely subjective, but many players feel that Fallout 3’s bleak, bombed-out wasteland better captures the classic “nuclear apocalypse” aesthetic. New Vegas has richer world-building, themes more aligned with Fallout 1 and 2, and a more realistic sense of a society rebuilding after centuries, but its tone is often more eccentric than apocalyptic. For some players, that makes 3 easier to get immersed in.
For the record, I still personally believe New Vegas is the stronger game. (Outside of “atmospheric reasons”) Most of the things Fallout 3 excels at are also done just as well (or better) in Oblivion and Skyrim. But what New Vegas does well, player agency and narrative depth, is something very few non-Isometric CRPG games even attempt, and even fewer do it even half as good.
Still, Fallout 3 delivers the “meditative, exploration-driven gameplay” that Bethesda built its reputation on from Oblivion onwards. For players who fell in love with that formula (especially those who entered the series with 3), New Vegas can feel like a departure from what they enjoy about the series.
And honestly, that’s one of my favorite things about Fallout: every game is a departure from the last. Fallout 2 shifted the tone dramatically from Fallout 1. Fallout 3 reinvented the franchise entirely. New Vegas reworked 3’s skeleton into something more narrative-focused. Fallout 4 emphasized crafting and building. Fallout 76 went multiplayer. No matter which game is your favorite, each one brings something unique to the table.
Anyway, I could talk about this stuff until the actual apocalypse, but I’ll end it here. But hopefully this helps explain why some people genuinely prefer Fallout 3 over New Vegas.
I’ve seen a ton of debate over 3 and New Vegas. People have said New Vegas is too small or too empty. I don’t get that at all, but I’ve definitely seen several people saying so in different venues.
I have seen debates of both 3 and 4 over New Vegas. These arguments tend to come almost exclusively from newer fans. Anyone who played 1 and 2 first, especially back in the day, tends to have a much less favourable view of the Bethesda Fallouts. But there are tons of Bethesda-first fans who came into Fallout after first playing Skyrim, typically. The 4 fans either love the base building or tend to think the other games are “too old looking/feeling”. The 3 fans… I don’t even know, that game is pretty terrible I think. But they tend to argue the design of the world in 3 is better to explore than New Vegas.
I haven’t personally heard anyone argue 76 is the best Fallout, but I’m sure someone is out there.
3 was the first one I ever played (after Oblivion tho to your beth point) and it was so radically different from anything I played before that I just fell in love.
New Vegas didn’t capture that same feeling in me, I like it but it just didn’t hit me the same way.
Fallout 4 I enjoyed a ton because of the base building and refinements on scrap usage for modifications and such, with mods like Sim Settlements it can be so damn cool.
The thing with 76 I’d only guess is literally the ability to coop.
ive seen it quite a bit. but i think 3 fans are too busy starting up another character to bother with debating 😂 definitely a quiet crowd but not totally invisible
I’m not saying Metacritic is the end-all be-all, but it does confirm the most commonly held opinion about the popularity of the modern games. You may think that there is a real debate here but that just isn’t the case. 4 and 76 are pretty firmly the less well received of these games.
Tactics was fun.
Agree but I wish it was more like the newer XCOM games.
Makes you think of what could have been, if they’d done the new Fallouts as tactical/Turn Based RPGs, rather than first person shooters - although the new Wasteland games do a pretty good job of filling that niche.
The fact of the matter is it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean it was a good game or something was done better (which is what Todd is looking for, validation), because some people liked it.
then what is? because 3 new vegas and 4 are all pretty much critically acclaimed, so would we go based off sales then? because in that case the order would be 4 then 3 then new vegas
That’s the point, it doesn’t matter. Enjoy any you want.
Todd just wants “his” Fallout games to be the most liked, to stroke his ego.
Also side note, sales never works as a metric because the gaming industry is constantly growing, any game released now sells much more than it ever would have 5, 10, 15, 20… years ago. Regardless of quality.
idk how you get that from todd saying all the fallout games have its fans
and to your last point, fo3 outsold new vegas even though new vegas came out 3 years after
Does he still carry the guilt from the metacritic fiasco?
That’d assuming he ever had any guilt over it
guilt about what exactly?
well avellone claims obsidian was so poorly managed even if they got the bonus it wouldnt have helped the devs at all, most likely going directly to the obsidian execs pockets (same execs who denied more time on the game)
je sawyer blames himself for not focusing on playtesting and bug fixing until way way way too late in development
so im not sure why todd would feel guilty about it at all. obsidian still got paid in full and the fans got a great game out of the ordeal (after they fixed the bugs at launch)
Were any of the Obsidian people they brought in the same ones that worked on New Vegas?
A casual look down the MobyGames lists on New Vegas and Outer Worlds 2 still shows a lot of overlap, so probably. It would be weird to invite people who didn’t work on New Vegas to see the realization of a thing they didn’t work on.
despite all the shit I’m still playing my bethesda games…well, only new vegas and elder scrolls but still
I mean the set has missed the mark, from that image in the article. So I’d be pretty disappointed if I was a dev.
