From Josh Sawyer's formspring:





Anyone else find this interesting?
Knowing that Bethesda is in charge....isn't it fairly likely New Vegas won't HAVE a canon ending? That the Courier could be the final protagonist of the west coast? I mean, Bethesda took over the series and, either out of respect for FO1 and FO2 or out of fear that they would NOT be able to please the fans if they tried to continue on the west coast, they moved the location east, where nothing they could do could screw up the core region story. Would Bethesda ever want to move there? In my opinion, that's doubtful, again because I'm sure there's an amount of respect involved, knowing that the Elder scrolls is their baby and they wouldn't like it if someone rewrote the direction of the series after Skyrim, AND because I'm willing to bet Bethesda is interested in crafting their own story on the East Coast.

Having said that, what are the odds we'll see Obsidian back? I'm not sure, but if they don't come back, then assuming that Bethesda won't touch the west and knowing that Bethesda is very allergic to canon endings (even when neccesary....friggin' Warp in the West.... ), it's likely we won't ever know what became of The Courier, the Mojave, the NCR and the Legion. People may interpret the situation different ways, but I think it's now about 50-50 that the canon ending to New Vegas is...."mysteries."


How do you feel about this? Would you prefer knowing what the intended ending was or would you prefer not having a canon story muddle with your RP character?
Personally I find it kind of sad. It's a possibility I can accept because, in a way, the ending was sort of about the Courier realizing what an impact he has on the world and then moving forward to try and correct his wrongdoings and build up a new nation (perhaps not as it's leader, but again, the point of the ending was to say ANYONE can make or break a nation). If the Courier's future impact on those nations remains a mystery, I can accept that because the Courier's motives were unclear to begin with. The story itself, to me, seems to imply a Courier who's a deep thinker when it comes to philosophical discussions, often pondering on what the best solution truly is, but he himself isn't sure of the answer or what he truly wants, so an air of mystery where we never know actually sounds somewhat fitting. Knowing that the Courier was basically tackling enormous philosophical questions such as "what is right" that humanity itself can't define means that yeah, it's probably impossible for Obsidian to design a truly fitting ending that actually provides closure to the story and not just a personality outline for the Courier. I can "let go" of my desire to know the ending for these reasons.
Nevertheless though, New Vegas was so well-written that I do want to wonder what would happen in the end, if Obsidian had a say. If not for the sake of knowing the ending, then for the sake of knowing what they wanted to do with the series.


Any thoughts?

I really hope they turn it over to them (obsidian) and stick to just producing. Seeing how they did the story and quests in skyrim I have no confidence in them doing justice to the series. This way they can still make there money and the fans will be happy too.

The reason he didn't give us the Canon ending to New Vegas is because he can't give us the canon ending. Bethesda is the keeper of the lore now. Only they can say what the canon ending will be.

I feel we will get a canon ending to New Vegas someday. I am still waiting for a Canon ending to Tactics so get in line.

Well he has no power over what is canon and what is not.
But yeah I don't see how anything in New Vegas can be canonized until the next game rolls out, and that's if the next game is set near the same area or have characters that can give clues as to what happened in the Mojave, Arizona and Cali.

I don't really want any developer from either Bethesda, Obsidian or Interplay to go "Well X won".
Not because it will [censored] up any of my characters, I don't care about that.
I get that the lore needs to have a consistent official storyline to go after and I love that.
Nah I just don't feel like it's right to canonize who won until we either get the Bible back or another game.

I read that on Formspring a few days ago and I've been thinking...I wouldn't really mind if some of my characters became non-canon. I'd rather have that then never see the west coast again. If Obsidian was allowed to make another west coast game, then I wouldn't mind if they had to pick a canon ending that contradicted my favorite ending.

But I'm pretty sure New Vegas won't have a canon ending as long as Bethesda is producing all future Fallout games, I don't think Bethesda will touch the west, they'll stay somewhere on the east coast and expand on what they've already created there.

Watch, if Beth makes a game close enough to New Vegas, I'll bet you 20 caps they'll make NCR canon because 'They're the good guys! They bring democracy!'

That would be awful....but I'm not going to bet against it.

I wouldnt pull it past them, seeing as they played 'knight crusader' with Fallout 3's narrative. As for your comment on Beth's game choices, I dont know about that, I seem to recall something about Arizona/Grand Canyon wanting to be used by Obsidian and Beth said no because they have plans for it, so we might see a near to New Vegas Bethesda game. I know Gabriel might be in a panic at the thought of Bethesda touching Legion lore

I have a strange feeling that if Bethesda makes a game in Legion territory it will end up like this:

The Legion controls "The Rim" or Grand Canyon area, but they've made an alliance with the Romlaht, a group of Enclave remnants from an oil rig off the coast of Texas. This has made the enslaved people of the Rim angry, so they decided to form a rebellion group known as the "Lightningcoats" named after their leader Rick Lightningcoat. You can't join the Legion "cause thair evil" and because they're allied with yet another Enclave faction, so that makes them automatically non-joinable.

At the end you will watch as a giant dragon robot kills all the Legion people in Flagstaff, and an over-the-top, nonsensical ending will ensue. Because the ending was so bad, Beth. will decide to make a DLC to extend the ending, and the DLC will be know as "Broken Dragon Robot." During the DLC, the dragon robot will turn evil and start eating the wasteland, and it will become known as the "waste-eater." (sounds appetizing doesn't it ) Your character's job will be to defeat the robot, and when you finally confront it you will have to use your speech skill to yell at a dust storm for five minutes. Once you have shouted the dust storm away, you can fight the robot, but you'll be so overpowered by this time the robot will only last about ten seconds in the fight.

When you return from your epic battle, no one will seem to care or even notice that you saved the wasteland, not even any of the 98,000 available companions in the game will make any comment about your heroic actions, they'll just repeat their two dialogue lines over and over again until you get mad and play a different game.

if there's any canon ending i think it will be Mr house as it is the most open ending, so future developers can choose what happens with each faction and decide if the crouier help them or not instead of being "you helped legion/NCR, so you can't have done any NCR/Legion qeust!"

Typco: that plot reminds me of skyrim lol although you can join the legion in skyrim. although I can understand why you can't join the thamlor (basically there version of enclave) as it's elves only, wouldn't be fair for other races. which is why you can only work for them.

More like: An over the top, nonsensical ending ensues and... nothing happens because the game (Bethesda learning from past mistakes) doesn't end but goes on and on, and no-one in the gameworld knows nor cares what just happened because nothing can really happen when the game doesn't end.


To the rest of the post: Sounds like something that could actually happen, sadly enough.

I have no problem with NCR winning as my speculative Legion aftermath desing follows that ending.
But yeah, Bethesda touching Legion? [censored] no, I'm calling child services and having Bethesda arrested for that, they have no right with their horrible black and white morals to even try to do something even remotely related with Legion if they're not working with Obsidian.
Cause they will [censored] up Legion completely.

And if people thought I was obnoxious with my negativity before then just wait and see how dreadful I'll make each thread I visit if Legion's aftermath is designed by Bethesda.
Of course, I'll still follow the rules of the forum and I won't troll or flamebait or flame or anything.
But I'll be even worse than I were before, but still within the comfy rules.

We will get a canon ending, but it isn't up to Obsidian. It's up to Bethesda. Oh and Bethesda, I am still waiting for the canon ending for Fallout Tactics.

It's sorta impiled on Fallout 3 that they destoryed the brain robot thing as the WBOS have "fallen onto hard times" edit: but not all of will be made cannon as Tatic broke cannon with modren weapons, talking deathclaws and other things that don't exist in the fallout uni



i think you should wait until they have made the game before doing that, just becuase they did "black & white" in fallout 3 doesn't mean there gona do it in fallout ??. look at skyrim, i'd hardy call either of those factions "black and white"

theres also the Year the fallout xx game is set in. I doudt legion is same as it was 15-20 year ago (different legate, smaller size, diffferent area etc)when it first started nor do i think it will same 20 years later after ceasar has died (use of some tech for example)

There are two endings that would cause their fall, and destroying the Calculator isn't one of them. So no it isn't implied at all in Fallout 3 that that was the ending.

i got this of the wiki. Tatics broken cannon in several places( like with guns) so i doudt it will ever be fully made cannon with a proper given ending unless bethesade decided to do a game there (and even then it will be like 150 years after or something so it doesn't have to be fully given.)

Yeah, I tried to mix Fallout 3's plot with Skyrim's plot and set in the Fallout universe. I can understand why you can't join the Thalmor, as they are pretty similar to the Enclave in that way.


It's always a sad day when over the top parodies might actually become (somewhat) true

I shall not.
I don't trust Bethesda and never will.
And for what they did to the Fallout franchise with Fallout 3 I'm gonna remain constantly cynical towards them until they've proven they can actually handle the Fallout franchise.

The only mistake in Fallout Tactics is the intro when it is said that the Brotherhood of Steel came from a Vault. That can be put down to poetic license since Mariposa survived, so it can be said it was like a Vault. Fallout 2 has "Continents were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans." Most put that down as poetic license.

Most of the "modern weapons" are real world weapons from before the timeline split in the 1950s so there is no trouble there or they were in development. Fallout 2 has the desert eagle.

The Deathclaws aren't an issue. It can be explained. It could be said that they were another type of Deathclaw that was made smarter so it would be easier to control. Given hair to better with stand the cold of Alaska and the Himalayas. The devs of Fallout One wanted to have hairy deathclaws but the graphics wouldn't show the hair well. So they didn't add them. They wanted more than one type.

inconsistency doesn't always = canon breaking. Fallout 3 has many inconsistencies, so does that mean its only semi-canon? Fallout 2 also has inconsistencies, so does that make it semi-canon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHv9acm3fF0

I personally would ignore anything Bethesda claimed was canon in the Mojave and see what the people at Obsidian would've wanted.
TBH, I think I would prefer NO canon ending for the Mojave (mysteries) compared to Bethesda picking one. We all know it'd be NCR, and while there's nothing wrong with NCR, there would probably be something wrong with their execution of it. (I.E., it wouldn't be the corrupt NCR, but a perfect, flawless, hero-like NCR that fights all evil and never does anything wrong)

To leave the next games open to speculation, I think it would have been so much easier to undermine the Courier. They made that charecter too much of a big deal, whereas if the player charecter had really just have been some wasteland scoundrel scavenging and killing monsters just to survive, players might have more empathy for that charecter and what happens next in the series wouldnt really need to chain together so much.

I thought so too at first, but the more I think about it, the more I think it wouldn't be so bad if the events of the Mojave remained mysteries.

The problem the Courier faces is a philosophical one that may not have an actual answer. The game encourages the player to think and question their own morals so I think it's safe to say that the intended "canon" Courier would do the same; it's simply only natural for the overall storyline. He sees four different options, all very different, and spends a long time in the Mojave getting to know the various nations in the area, having time to think over his decisions. Then he sees the Sierra Madre, Zion, Big MT, and finally has a important chat with Ulysses.

To me, the ending builds up to a point where the Courier MUST answer the question somehow. He must think of a new way of running a nation or a way to resolve all the problems of the Mojave. Realistically though, we, humanity, do not yet know this answer (if there is one), so it'd be ridiculous to expect Obsidian to come up with an adequate ending. To me, I've somehow always had a feeling that the canon ending would involve an independent Vegas (House or anarchy winning would remain unclear, but both Legion and NCR would be in trouble) and we'd hear little to no detail ABOUT the Mojave, leaving the player to assume it's either a thriving Oasis in the wastes or somehow absolutely destroyed. Any other ending would feel like a cop-out, because after all that build-up of moral dilemmas and really thinking about your decisions, the theme would just kinda fizzle out and be (for example) "Uhhh the Courier supported the NCR because he was a proud NCR citizen" or some situation that involves a less-than-thoughtful Courier.

The Courier himself as a character? Yes, I found him interesting. This was the first RPG character I've seen that, to me, was NOT a blank slate. The Courier has themes and patterns that define who he is; you will find statements made by NPCs that seem to imply characteristics of the Courier. The man is lucky as hell. The man is followed by death or IS Death personified. He's durable as hell and seems fairly charming, judging by NPC reactions to him and potential dialog.
So while I found the Courier interesting and wouldn't mind hearing details about HIM in the future, I think I could be satisfied with the ending to New Vegas remaining "mysteries." Though this is a special case since New Vegas' overall theme may simply be too big to give a proper ending to; normally I WOULD want a canon ending.

I like not having a canon ending, at least now. If say I knew that a House ending was canon then doing an NCR playthrough would seem less important to me because its not what is supposed to happen. I think that giving a game like Fallout New Vegas a canon ending is almost as bad as giving the Lone Wanderer a full backstory, to me at least both severely hamper the role playing aspect.

Not having a canon ending is great since it allows my logic to actually think. Piece together the information given by the faction I support (Caesar's Legion), and interpret it. Besides, if I knew that an NCR ending was canon, I'd lose a bit of faith in Bethesda. Fallout 3 overall is a great game but good vs. evil is probably the #1 thing I hate in a story.

Why? Because the world isn't like that. There are always two sides to a story. Not to mention that NCR is far from being the good guys but are portrayed as that, making them the "good guys" of the story, even though they aren't if you're actually thinking rather than going along with Bethesda's subtle hints.

After all, if I knew that one ending was canon, then that would make me feel like I'd have no point in going through the main quest any more since I already finished all four questlines.

there was a talking deathclaw in FO2 in the navarro base. you could kill him for the scientist, or kill the scientist and free the deathclaw. was a great little part. (someone mentioned talking dc's as not part of fallout).

i fully agree with sawyer's statement there should be no canon ending. if they wanted the story to go a particular way, then giving us the options to do it differently is pointless. i also fully agree what makes an rpg is giving the player choice and making that choice the 'correct' ending. part of what i love in FNV is it's almost a crash course in political philosophy. certainly one could play it by going on the factions at face value, but the beauty and genius of FNV is everything that's under the surface; to read between the lines and think to come to a conclusion.

if a future game demanded a canon ending, House would probably be the best simply because his ending retains all the original conflict at the start of the game.

and thanks for the link to sawyer's formspring, he has some great comments about FNV and the thought process behind some decisions. plus, some comments of his about the legion really fleshed out what they were (i would have loved to see a fully fleshed out legion in the game, they really caught the short end of the 'cut' stick). give obsidian skyrim's engine and dev period and i believe we'd see a fallout the likes of which may never be duplicated.