Fallout is one of the most influential RPG franchises. Ever since the first game, people have praised the series for its rich story, amazing world-building, believable and complex characters, and more praises that we could go on discussing for ages.
Fallout: New Vegas is unique in that it was not developed by Bethesda Game Studios, but rather by Obsidian Entertainment, whose team consisted of individuals who had created the original Fallout. Fallout 4 is much more modern, with enhanced graphics and gameplay that stands out significantly compared to earlier Fallout titles.
Which game do you think is better, and which game suits you best? Can Fallout: New Vegas meet current standards? Is Fallout 4’s gameplay significantly better, making it a superior game now? This article will put Fallout New Vegas vs Fallout 4 to answer these questions by covering the strengths and weaknesses of both games.
Graphics
To start off this comparison of Fallout New Vegas versus Fallout 4, we will discuss the visual differences between the two games. Graphics-wise, New Vegas was outdated even upon its release, and the textures and characters often look quite goofy.
Fallout 4, on the other hand, looks way better, and it can actually be a good-looking game at times, even though better-looking games were coming out in the same year, even in previous years.
New Vegas can also look good at times; even though the game looks worse than Fallout 4 in almost every way, it does have the strength of its art style, which we will discuss later.
Visually Fallout 4 is vastly superior.
Winner: Fallout 4
Art Style and Art Direction in Fallout New Vegas vs Fallout 4
The strength of both games lies in their art direction. With its 1950s-style buildings and environment, Fallout 4 looks fantastic and is pleasing to look at, regardless of the quality of its textures, lighting, and shadows.
Fallout: New Vegas has more of a gritty and dark style; not to say that it is without its wacky moments, but compared to some of the newer Fallout games, it shows a side of the apocalypse that is more reminiscent of titles such as Fallout 1 and 2.
It shows a warning of what humanity can be if we go down a darker path, and that is reflected in its art style and design. There is nothing wrong with having a less serious style of game, but we prefer the approach that New Vegas took.
Weapons And Armor
For instance, the weapons in each game have a very different style. Fallout 4 took a less serious approach, with World War I and II-inspired weapons that seem less believable than those in New Vegas.
This may seem like a small thing, but it plays a big role as you will be using weapons throughout the entire game; it really gives the world a different feel when you have weapons such as the M4A1. Not to mention that modern weapons are just much cooler.
Art Direction
New Vegas, even with its outdated graphics, can look beautiful at times; for example, looking at The Strip from Goodsprings still gives us chills. The art style was really well done, and the game does visuals in a very smart way.
Even though Fallout 4 has better graphics, in our opinion, New Vegas has a better atmosphere and art direction more reminiscent of the older games.
Winner: Fallout New Vegas
Story And Characters
Fallout: New Vegas is famous for its story and incredible characters, and for good reason. Characters like Joshua Graham are some of the best-written characters in any video game. In the Honest Hearts DLC alone, another amazing, tragic, and overlooked character appears: Randall Clark. We definitely recommend reading up more on his story.
Caesar, who is kind of like the main villain of Fallout: New Vegas, brings up reasons as to why he is the way he is. Sure, his logic is flawed and his methods are downright evil at times, but he is a character who is not meant to be perfect and is shown as someone who, in his twisted way, is doing what needs to be done for a better society.
This is just scratching the surface, and we think that New Vegas has mastered the art of character creation with some of the most inspirational characters in all of gaming.
Fallout 4 is a bit lackluster in all of these areas; sure, the story is pretty good and the characters are too, but that is it – it is a downgrade in every way compared to New Vegas. The characters lack nuance, and the fact that you have far fewer dialogue options shows that it is a step backward in many ways.
Fallout 4’s factions just kind of suck; we found that we didn’t really want to align with anyone necessarily, except the Minutemen, whose problem is that they are simply bland. They’re clearly the best faction in the game morally, but they’re just not that interesting.
Characters like The Father are interesting on the surface, but the way he was executed could have been done better in our opinion. Plus, most of the characters in Fallout 4 are not as interesting as they are in New Vegas.
Fallout New Vegas wins out versus Fallout 4 in this department by a landslide.
Winner: Fallout New Vegas
Gameplay in Fallout 4 vs Fallout New Vegas
Now, both games have pretty good gameplay; New Vegas is a bit different, since it focuses a lot on the quests and you can resolve many of them simply by talking to people. This is not bad; it’s just a different approach.
Fallout 4, on the other hand, has less interesting characters, stories, and quests; and you are forced into a different kind of gameplay. This, weirdly enough, makes it so that the focus is more on the gameplay aspect of shooting, moving, jumping, etc., which is miles better in Fallout 4.
The gunplay in Fallout 4 is actually quite good; it’s very satisfying. The modifications you can put on guns are an interesting concept and require you to invest perks into gunsmithing to make a difference.
Regarding perks, we find that Fallout 4’s perks are less engaging because most of them only provide slight improvements to overall statistics. We prefer more intriguing perks, such as Sneering Imperialist, rather than a 20% boost to Assault Rifle damage.
Fallout 4 lacks ammo types, which can make dealing with spongy enemies frustrating at times. Your choices become more significant, and you need to carefully consider which ammo type to use in different engagements.
Even though some of the things mentioned in New Vegas do better, we have to give this part to Fallout 4.
Winner: Fallout 4
Related: The Max Level in Fallout 4
The Replayability of Both Fallout Games
Both games are RPGs in which replayability is a strong suit. We have played both of these games countless times, and that is for good reason. Both games have great replay value.
One bad thing about Fallout 4’s replay value is the story. Sure, you can ignore it and explore the wasteland at your own pace, but you unlock a big portion of the game by simply playing the main quest, and we sometimes feel forced into it.
Plus, what seems like a good idea on the surface, the infinite settlement quests and quests that have no end, in general, are quite frustrating additions. It just feels like there is no resolution to these, and the rewards are lackluster.
The beginning cutscenes are unskippable, forcing you to replay the same sequence each time.
New Vegas has very few unskippable parts, and you can even skip the tutorial segment in Goodsprings. After leaving Doc Mitchell’s house, you are pretty much free to go wherever you wish.
Winner: Fallout New Vegas
Exploration And Reward in New Vegas vs Fallout 4
Fallout 4 introduced a legendary system in which you have a chance to get a rare weapon with unique perks. This encourages you to explore the world, searching for better weapons that might have better stats than your current one.
Fallout New Vegas does things differently, where many locations you visit have some kind of reward at the end; most often, it is a weapon that you cannot find anywhere else. The differences between these two approaches are significant.
In our opinion, New Vegas does this better; getting a unique weapon with potential for lore and backstory is way more impactful than an incremental change to our weapon’s stats.
Not to be too harsh, as we totally understand why some people prefer Fallout 4’s system, but we have to give this one to New Vegas.
Winner: Fallout New Vegas
Choices Matter
We wanted to talk about the choices in both of these games and what they mean. Fallout, as a franchise, is known for making its players feel like their choices have consequences. These games make you feel like you are part of their world.
Fallout New Vegas has an impressive feature where almost every quest in the game can be completed in numerous ways. Even years after playing, players are still discovering new ways to finish certain quests.
Of course, New Vegas has the occasional linear quest that may not be as interesting, but even at some of the worst ones, it delivers. For example, in “They Went That-a-Way” you have to do a lot of running back and forth for no reason.
Even so, the number of ways you can finish this quest is honestly amazing, and it is one of the strengths of New Vegas.
In comparison with many things, Fallout 4 is not inherently bad; however, it just pales in comparison, as a lot of the quests offer very few impactful choices and not many changes.
Winner: Fallout New Vegas
Bugs And Performance
To be completely honest, both games have pretty lackluster performance for their age and look. Fallout 4 performs poorly at times, even with today’s hardware in certain areas; you still need mods to improve it.
Fallout New Vegas is even worse, with an engine limitation of 60fps; v-sync is mandatory, as the game breaks at higher framerates, and the bugs are endless if you are not playing on PC. Even if you are, the crashes and performance issues will make anyone frustrated.
With as much praise as the game has gotten, it was released in a poor state, and unless you have modded it, the game will run poorly.
Fallout 4 comes out ahead in this Fallout New Vegas vs Fallout 4 performance comparison.
Winner: Fallout 4
Related Article: Whether or Not Fallout 76 Allows Cross-Platform Play
Soundtrack
A soundtrack is one of those things that is completely subjective. Music is down to personal preference and how it makes one feel. For us, listening to New Vegas’ soundtrack evokes a sort of fond nostalgia, with pieces from the original Fallouts appearing in its OST.
Fallout: New Vegas has that feeling of a world after an apocalypse. Things are starting to get better, but just how much and how much have we learned from our mistakes?
Fallout 4, on the same note, has an excellent soundtrack, and it really shows a broken world grasping at survival when one listens to it.
Even though New Vegas is more nostalgic for us, we cannot, in good faith, choose a winner here; instead, we just want to remind everyone how good the music in these games is.
Winner: Tie between Fallout New Vegas vs Fallout 4
Final Thoughts on Fallout New Vegas vs Fallout 4
Both of these games are great; the way Fallout 4 modernizes the series is amazing, and the game is definitely worth checking out. Even though we have been critical of it, that is only because of how many good things New Vegas has done.
In our opinion, New Vegas is one of the best games of all time, despite its flaws; Fallout 4 had pretty big shoes to fill.
Just watching the many endings for the game makes us wonder to what extent we have influenced the world around us and in what way. The impact of our choices is easily the best thing about New Vegas.
That is why we think Fallout: New Vegas is the better game to play, and we think it holds up even today. We recommend you play it at least once, and if you are patient enough, download some mods, especially for stability, as it makes a big difference.
We hope you enjoyed this article comparing Fallout New Vegas vs Fallout 4. It was really fun to look back at what both games did right, and just the nostalgia of listening to the soundtracks is enough to make us emotional.
Tell us your opinion: which game do you think is better? We are constantly creating new content for amazing games like Fallout and Skyrim. If you’re a fan of Fallout, take a look at our article on the 8 best open-world games like Fallout.
See you around, and good luck in your games!
