The extremely long-awaited mod for Fallout New Vegas has finally been released, after years of development. One criticism that has sometimes been leveled at Fallout New Vegas is that many of the voices are shared between various characters. It’s certainly true that one gets a certain sense of deja vu when some characters start to speak.
The Brave New World mod is pretty ambitious, providing new voices for 145 non-player characters (NPCs), and took four years to audition and complete. And the mods creators obviously have a lot of love for Fallout New Vegas, as the result is a high-quality upgrade of a fan-favorite game.
New voices
The original Fallout New Vegas often had voice actors doing 15 different parts. It’s a tall order for even the most talented voice actor to produce so many ‘unique’ voices – and fans thought the game suffered slightly for it.
The Brave New World mod took four years of painstaking work to finish – 30,000 voice auditions were held during this time, as the creators recast and re-recorded ‘almost’ 145 NPCs, using 138 actors to provide 7,000 lines of new dialogue.
The developers were careful to maintain the standards the game had set. “Our team has gone to great lengths to make sure that the project meets the standards of quality expected for voice acting/voice overs within the gaming industry,” a representative said.
What’s changed?
Voices are now suited to their character’s attributes – a child character will actually sound like a child, an older person will sound old, etc. The quality of the delivery of lines has also been improved, as before some of the dialogue was rushed, or lacking in spirit and emotion – this has been remedied. But not every single voice has been replaced. A stated policy is that the more recognizable, iconic, and ‘well-acted’ voices would remain, e.g. Caesar, Doc Mitchell, Legate Lanius – and more emphasis is placed on the quality of the acting and pacing.
A video released in tandem with the mod displays every new voice in the game, and if you look at the list of voice credits, you may find some familiar names.
Other details
The Brave New World mod has also made some visual changes to go with the audio ones – you’ll notice that those nice new voices have nice new faces as well. This is because four years ago when the development of the mod began, it was actually intended to be the newest version of New Vegas Redesigned 3, a visual overhaul mod.
While the game looks and sounds different, and requires a new Fallout New Vegas playthrough, you can still build your perks and skills, such as ‘luck’, something we could all use in real life as well. Luck is useful in all of the Fallout New Vegas casinos, where you can play roulette, blackjack and slot machines. The slots are particularly realistic, so if you enjoy playing real slots online you will love them in the game. One thing stayed the same though – New Vegas Craps tables are still only for decorative purposes, nothing to play on. It would be nice to see them in their playable version. They would surely add more spice to the whole Brave New World adventure. But first things first.
The combat elements in FNV were also improved from Fallout 3 – the V.A.T.S. system was updated with several new V.A.T.S.-specific attacks, and a number of kill animations being made for several of the game’s melee weapons. The third-person perspective was also redesigned for a more ‘over the shoulder’ effect. All of this, plus the new voices and faces, is already going down well with fans of the game. If you wish to install the mod, details can be found on the Nexus mod page and includes FAQs and other information.
A great game just got made even better – this is a mod made with respect and love for Fallout New Vegas, and irons out one of the few criticisms made of the game.
