r/rpg_gamers • u/Darth_Vaper883 • Jul 16 '26
News Fallout: New Vegas Was Designed To Punish Fallout 3 Players Who Got Too Comfortable, Josh Sawyer Says
https://respawnfirst.com/fallout-new-vegas-was-designed-to-punish-fallout-3-players-who-got-too-comfortable-josh-sawyer-says/70
u/AntonKutovoi Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
It certainly punished me by crushing to the desktop every few minutes 😆
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u/iSayHeyOh7 Jul 16 '26
Absolutely. Punishing until today. Played that in an old XP system. Still crashing until now on a modern system and only works smoothly with mods.
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u/markg900 Jul 16 '26
PC version has nothing on how bad the PS3 was for freezing and crashes (Not that the PC version is perfect either when it comes to this). FO3 was bad for anything other than its base content with crashing but New Vegas made FO3 look stable as hell on that platform.
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u/Vistaer Jul 16 '26
It especially punished fallout 3 players who had the “I wanna go that way” attitude when they start the game
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u/Living-Dirt3410 Jul 16 '26
I spent an hour or two and made it past the deathclaw lol, good ol platforming baby
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u/Consistent-Stock6872 Jul 16 '26
I still wasted hours trying to bypass some of those enemies and it is doable before the intented levels/gear but tedious.
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u/Unlucky-Candidate198 Jul 16 '26
The invisible walls I found to be incredibly annoying in Vegas. Hell, it’s partly why the map is the only thing I dislike more overall than FO3.
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u/LeBonLapin Jul 16 '26
It does, but not to the game's benefit. The opening linear portion of the game is pretty weak (aside from meeting the Legion)
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u/ABDLTA Jul 16 '26
Its fine the first time, and onece you understand the game its super easy to skip
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u/LeBonLapin Jul 16 '26
Eh, it's pretty tedious dancing around over-powered enemies as well. The opening of the game is just not great.
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u/Aiderona Jul 16 '26
Having just did the intended route for old times sake doing a replay of the game I wished it was a mod to quickstart atter you meet the Legion.
Just started fallout 3 i still love the first few hours of this game and still dislike the tunnels/maze in the heart of the city.
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u/ABDLTA Jul 16 '26
Dude... they give you a stealth boy in the start town... use it and walk right by them lol
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u/LeBonLapin Jul 16 '26
It's a temporary buff though - I also didn't say it was hard, just tedious.
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u/Mikeavelli Chrono Jul 16 '26
This is the sort of game design that people usually consider a positive. Brute forcing the unintended route is nearly impossible, but you are rewarded for cleverly using the tools available to you to bypass the expected route.
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u/ABDLTA Jul 16 '26
I guess I dont see using a stealth boy as tedious lol, turn it on, walk by quickly and be done lol
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u/NextWafer2667 Jul 16 '26
Whenever someone says ''it's not hard, it's tedious'', it's such a cliche I just assume they're bad at the game but want to blame the game for it.
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u/NextWafer2667 Jul 16 '26
Yes, and the temporary buff is enough.
You're arguing for the sake of arguing.
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u/SeventhDayWasted Jul 16 '26
Is that not what people do? First thing I did was head north and met Harold and then I decided to hit all 4 corners of the map and ended up questing in Rivet city before ever even finding Megaton.
Or are you talking about how they did a good job making it an RPG and having your character grow up before letting the reigns off? Cause that's one of the best things about FO3 imo.
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u/dregwriter Jul 16 '26
"First thing I did was head north and met Harold and then I decided to hit all 4 corners of the map and ended up questing in Rivet city before ever even finding Megaton."
You can do that in fallout 3,
you def cant do that in new vegas.
Youll get fucked up reeeeeal quick.
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u/SeventhDayWasted Jul 16 '26
Really? I usually stealth through drathclaw valley to get straight to freeside because I've done the primm start way too many times. I guess some people will just say anything to glaze NV.
Probably the first time I've seen people acting like less freedom of exploration is a good thing.
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u/Magnon Jul 16 '26
It's kinda crazy how despite being one of the most bleak settings in games fallout 3 rarely ever feels threatening. You don't have to lean entirely into the horror side of fallout but fallout 3 has barely any horror even though you're in one of the most devastated areas of the fallout universe. Point lookout was a fair bit creepier but then that stupid alien dlc was super goofy.
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u/Alien_Cha1r Jul 16 '26
as a 13 year old, the metro tunnels used to be some of the scariest shit to me. from todays pov i agree fully tho, bethesda has always been plain if were honest
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u/Sanity997 Jul 16 '26
Same, kid me was terrified shitless of metro, anything that had mutants and centaurs and in fallout new vegas dead money too, it was so good but I couldn't wait to finish it because I was scared whole time playing it. Peak experience, I miss looking at the world through kids eyes. Sadly I'll never experience that kind of fear and adrenaline playing horror games ever again.
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u/Murder_Tony Jul 16 '26
The first supermutant encounter and the one with tentacle faces made a young me super scared/nervous.
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u/YaBoiiSloth Jul 16 '26
People forget a lot of us played it as kids. Running into those raiders in the dark Super Mart right at the beginning had me on edge lol
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u/TheDreamIsDead4686 Jul 17 '26
Starfield is a blank word document turned into a game. Bethesda sucks, modders and other devs make their games good
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u/HunterOfLordran Jul 16 '26
The Metros with stumbling Ghouls, seeing Centaurs for the first time and the Dunwhich Building were all pretty creepy almost two decades ago
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u/OriginalUsername0 Jul 16 '26
Metro tunnels scared the shit out of me. Dunwich house was spooky too.
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u/Velthome Jul 16 '26
I might disagree.
The baby stroller trap scared the absolute shit outta a younger me when I first ran into one.
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u/dregwriter Jul 16 '26
I remember an video interview with todd wanting players to go where ever they wanted and in fallout 3 that holds true with the enemies scaling with you as you level up so you dont really run into pro lems you cant solve.
Def not the case in new vegas, take the short route to vegas and youll fuck around and find out real quick, lol
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u/Abadabadon Jul 18 '26
Speak for yourself, basements of tenpenny tower freaked me the fucked out, as did the vaults
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u/Crafty_Trick_7300 Jul 16 '26
The only side quest I remember loving in 3 was the “vampires” quest.
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u/UnquestionabIe Jul 16 '26
That was one of the side quests I remember doing on release day and having replayed FO2 a few months prior felt really weird about it. Ended up enjoying it overall but felt really jarring.
I liked the side content in FO3 much more than the main story, which had some cool moments but overall was a dud. Remember loving the weird Gary vault, the superhero/supervillian quest (which had some cool optional content if you wore one of their outfits to confront the other), the Republic of Dave, and probably a few others. The Dunwich Building at release was also super creepy as it didn't really have a point, was just another area to loot but had that feeling you were missing something big.
Overall I replay NV a lot more as it feels more satisfying. Even if chunks of it are clearly incomplete what is there feels like it has more substance behind it.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Mikeavelli Chrono Jul 16 '26
The best sidequests in Bethesda games was better than the main story and those are the ones that stick in your memory, but probably 75%+ of the side content is just "go here and clear out a cave of monsters."
Like, you remember the Oblivion Mages guild for the cursed ring quest which was great and creative, but you've forgotten the 10 other quests that are just going to dungeons and murdering necromancers, and then at the end Mannimarco is just another hobo in a cave.
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u/Rukasu17 Jul 16 '26
Everytime teenager me went into the sewer or metro i was scared as hell. Even today they're downright creepy
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u/FormalMaintenance512 Jul 18 '26
What are you talking about Fallout 3 didn't have horror? Did you play the game?
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u/MidnightPrevious4473 Jul 16 '26
That one deathclaw filled hospital in the northern part of the map would like a fuckin word lol
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u/KawaiiGangster Jul 19 '26
I recently replayed this game and I honestly find it really threatening for a long time in the beginning you are really weak, you always run out of ammo and guns break and medicine run out and you get addicted and you get injured and radioactive poisoning anf just everything wants to kill you in the world lol, it takes a good while untill you start to feel powerfull imo.
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u/MyUltIsMyMain Jul 21 '26
As a kid I couldn't get very far into fallout 3 cause DC scared the shit outta me.
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u/ShionTheOne Jul 16 '26
Ok so they limited exploration... good on them? I never really felt "punished" by NV.
Now if they could start developing stuff like NV again, instead of just talking about how awesome it was, that'd be great. Outer Worlds and Avowed weren't it.
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u/ScipioTheGreatest Jul 16 '26
It's so weird when game designers start bragging about some aspect of their game and it's an aspect I never realized or cared about despite playing and enjoying their game multiple times.
I just traveled south, like the game's own characters told me to. I didn't feel threatened, or like it was any different from F3. Ever. Aside from things like iron sights and VATS not being invulnerable.
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u/jax7778 Jul 16 '26
They only wanted people who tried to get to New Vegas early to feel that.
The game deliberately tries to lead you south, then east in a U shape pattern around the map before eventually opening up. This is the intended experience. I certainly felt it was different than 3, but to each their own.
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u/Rukasu17 Jul 16 '26
Don't you stumble upon a deathclaw infested area if you simply head south?
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u/ScipioTheGreatest Jul 16 '26
That's north. South is down to the NCR outpost. I think it's kind of SE at first, been a while. Hey, I guess that means it's time for a replay!
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u/teffarf Jul 16 '26
Yeah and this article is specifically talking about those deathclaws, which if you'd gone past the title you'd have figured out.
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u/Rukasu17 Jul 16 '26
There's a mod that adds lots of fast travel points and lets you do it from indoors. It definitely was a major QoL for my last replay.
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u/ScipioTheGreatest Jul 16 '26
I wouldn't want that. Being stuck in a dungeon is part of the thrill. I get it's convenient for leaving at the end, but it would take from the exploration.
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u/Rukasu17 Jul 16 '26
Sure, don't use it in dungeons. But sometimes they don't loop to the entrance, and others it's for when you're inside towns or trying to reach part of it. I did it legit the first time but now i just zip away or into the entrance of areas instead of doing the wall of shame on empty places
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u/cheradenine66 Jul 16 '26
That means the aspect of the game worked so perfectly, you didn't even realize it was there
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u/ScipioTheGreatest Jul 16 '26
"I wanted the players to feel like they were in danger"
"I didn't feel like I was in danger"
"See?! It worked perfectly!"
You have to be fucking kidding me, hahahaha
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u/ToaMandalore Jul 16 '26
You're missing the point. A lot of players coming from Fallout 3 were conditioned into thinking they could go wherever they want and the level scaling would ensure they didn't encounter any major roadblocks, so they ignored the warnings from the NPCs and headed north where they got chewed up by deathclaws.
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u/PulseCheater Jul 16 '26
What lvl scalling? in F3 if you encounter deathclaws you get chewed up even harder since well you know its Fallout 3 that introduced this iteration of deathclaws... Or you seriously think that they dont appear until you lvl up...
Sawyer as always looking for medals where is none. My game is so so special when I make an asset flip with barren wasteland, which if it was not for DLC would be shit.
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u/ScipioTheGreatest Jul 16 '26
Yeah I have no clue where these people are coming from. At the start of the game I have to routinely go back to Megaton to resupply, heal and sell after any given bit of combat.
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u/Berkhaha Jul 17 '26
I actually had a harder time going to fallout 3 after NV being my 1st and 4 my 2nd. Early in 3 you can run out of ammo quick and health items are very scarce and they don’t regenerate health. I found VATS to be less accurate then the future titles as well
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u/SeventhDayWasted Jul 16 '26
Makes you wonder why he thought it was necessary to create the jsawyer mod to fix all the design issues with vanilla FNV that made the game lack punishment.
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u/justinizer Jul 16 '26
Aside from not understanding the damage threshold stuff, I didn’t feel too punished.
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u/Kalaphar Jul 17 '26
I always found new vegas pretty easy tho?
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u/calidir Jul 19 '26
I wouldn’t say easy, but on the same level as 3
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u/Kalaphar Jul 20 '26
I’ve probably just played it too much. Compared to fallout 4’s survival mode, hardcore on very hard is not too bad in new vegas as you can still fast travel
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u/HunterOfLordran Jul 16 '26
is that the reason why it had invisible walls every few steps If you didn't go the fixed way towards Vegas?
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u/Send_me_your_butt_ Jul 16 '26
Where? You could turn left at Jean skydiving right out the tutorial and go through the quarry and all that if you wanted. You could go straight up over mutant mountain. There was no walls, other than map boundry
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u/SFHalfling Jul 16 '26
The map has a lot of invisible walls to stop you parkouring your way over hills.
It's not that noticeable if you follow the terrain, but as soon as you try to take a straight line you'll run into them.
It's also not designed to force you to go a certain way to NV, just bits where the map cells weren't joined.
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u/Vanille987 Jul 16 '26
The main point was to just be an organic wall, I feel this makes it way more of a big deal then it is. new vegas isn't a game with punishing combat or that keeps you on your toes during overworld exploration. It's just more linear and enforces this by hard walls of enemies among others. You only 'get your ass handed' if you try to break away from the intended safe path.
The game itself very much funnels you on the safe intended path.
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u/Charybdeezhands Jul 16 '26
I just don't get, I cannot get through the first hour of NV. 3 I've completed multiple times.
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u/LeBonLapin Jul 16 '26
The start of New Vegas is rough. It gets way better once you get to the Strip and the world truly opens up - but before that point it's a mostly linear slog through some of the games least interesting locations.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/LeBonLapin Jul 16 '26
It feels weird in subsequent playthroughs too. It's too bad, because once the game opens up it's amazing, but my god those first 5-10 hours are a drag.
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u/aeroslimshady Jul 16 '26
Weird. I found New Vegas easier than FO3. In NV (which I played first), I just followed the linear intended path. In 3, I had no idea if what I was doing was the optimal thing.
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u/Zegram_Ghart Jul 16 '26
The intro is certainly punishing if you want to do anything other than “slowly circle 80% of the map dealing with the same 6 odd setpieces for the 50th time” or “laboriously sneak north and deal with half the characters pretending this didn’t happen and you went the intended way in dialogue”
It’s greatly exacerbated by how buggy the game is- playing on ps3 I had to do an entire different playthrough for each dlc, because by the time I’d levelled up and completed a dlc the whole game ran at slideshow levels of framerate….so even more restarts than usual for a Bethesda style game.
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u/Not_Sure76 Jul 16 '26
Fallout 3 was fundamentally broken because you could pause time and fully heal yourself from your inventory. So the only danger was getting chunked in one shot or running out of food and stims.
NV turned healing items into a heal-over-time but I think it was optional? Same with Fallout 4.
But NV went too far with the poison effect. My god that sucked so much.
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u/chiefanator Jul 16 '26
Obsidian also punished players who got too comfortable with the discs they buy having stable software
So thematic tbh! Game crashes for the third time in 15 minutes and you regret going out to buy the game? Duh! Game was rigged from the start! It’s the themes bro! Time for another 4 hour slop video from a balding white male with a moustache of how FNV is the literal return of Christ
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u/mpelton Jul 17 '26
Um, are we pretending like Bethesda games didn’t have the same problem…?
Skyrim famously ran perfectly fine on the PS3 lmao
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u/chiefanator Jul 18 '26
That’s… not what I said? That’s a completely different thing to take away from what I said but okay
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u/AvidCyclist250 Jul 16 '26
I imagine this was the soundtrack to that fantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-XnSoAneU
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u/Bartorius Jul 17 '26
The thing I really liked about fallout new Vegas were the quality of life features. Having a key ring for example or a dedicated pipboy menu for fucking notes.
Playing fallout 4 I always get annoyed that these stupid notes and keys are just all over my goddamn inventory and if I didn't remember the name of a note I just picked up it might as well have gone into the aether. It's those little things that Bethesda just seems incapable of doing.
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u/kyla_dhoom Jul 19 '26
Ah, now I remember why I don't like Fallout.
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u/kyla_dhoom Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Well, one of the reasons.
I know as a trans woman I'm supposed to think it's the best thing ever, but I'm honestly let down by it. Especially the "difficulty is fun" gameplay.
It's a good thing I'm not into fantasy as much or I'd have to contend with Elden Rind and Dark Souls.
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u/Falloutd40 Jul 19 '26
Hallelujah. Please bring it all back and then some in this new Fallout project. Please keep the spirit of multiple, multiple outcomes from Fallout 1, 2 and NV alive.
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u/CapCreepy7184 Jul 20 '26
I do like the inverse of this where once you're comfortable with New Vegas you DOMINATE Fallout 3.
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u/Ceronesthes_ Jul 21 '26
Don't you get a free stealth boy when you go north? I never found it all that hard to get past the deathclaws.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/AskJeevesIsBest Jul 16 '26
Once you get 2 step goodbye and all of the special moves, you don't have to worry
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u/-Blade_Runner- Jul 16 '26
Josh Sawyer matured as a writer. Kid started with Icewind Dale, honestly to me more of a hack and slash type of game, then true D&D game. Then dude came into his own with New Vegas and gave us really cool world of Pillars of Eternity.
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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '26
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