Fallout: New California adds an all new story around a new player character, an adopted resident of Vault 18, embarking on a journey through the wastelands of the New California Republic’s Cajon Pass. An unofficial prequel to New Vegas, FPB adds hours of new gameplay and a fully voiced stand alone campaign.
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After their previous update letting fans know that they still have the greenlight from Bethesda to pursue this project, it’s time for even bigger news: it’s finally in beta! Beta 200 is now playable from start to finish and the team reports that at this time, it is stable! This beta period will be crucial in hammering out any kinks and bugs still hidden within, but this is a huge milestone for the team!
Here’s a few of the highlights from their massive update below:
“Because our story is so replete with branching narratives, it gets extremely dense. The very first branch you encounter in FNC splits the entire first 1/3rd of the game in half and effectively gives you a radically opposite perspective on the world where every NPC has new dialogue to account for a different Vault origin story.
Some branches have you joining the Enclave as a lone covert Agent versus you and your Wasteland Scout buddies questing together, or joining the NCR as opposed to the Raider Alliance. If you choose that last branch it’s literally because you took a right turn at a forked road after being warned what’s up there, and that decision GIVES YOU EFFECTIVELY ANOTHER MOD’S WORTH OF CONTENT.”
They also touched on the girth of voice work being done with over 14,000 lines accounted for:
“We do that 7 different times with 12 endings (1 of which is a maybe, we might not work that one out. So 11 endings and 1 that’s implemented but not playable. Yet.) So these 14,000 lines spread across 42 actors and about 60ish characters are concentrated in very dense layers. The code is a labyrinth the density of a neutron star, it’s just a web of branching conditions and checks on unexpected player behaviour. Pascal probability handlers to see what the player might randomly decide to mix together, basically.”
“When you combine the absence of side quests with the fact that our map is irrationally large and open desert, it kinda results in “content droughts.”
When you’re in our main quest areas, good gods, wow, that is almost too much cool stuff in one place. It puts some games to shame. But then you leave our main quest and are treated to a picturesque but largely empty void that cares about you as much as your aloof super mutant father.
There are only two of us working in the GECK right now both making content and fixing bugs. Me and Rick. Rick is our lead programmer and I am the lead artist. I patch buggy levels and add art, Rick fixes engine bugs and scripts narrative events & content.
We’re both busy as hell making sure the mod is playable. Adding new voiced story content?
That’s a dog with two bones.
The only real option I had is to ask for help, but history shows that doing so absolutely doesn’t work. I tried anyway, posted a few help wanted ads on Nexus and Discord modding pages with active New Vegas modders, and sent personal invites to about 15 quest modders, all of them with the skills we need. Followed up with each one and got back a dude who wants to write but not script and radio silence.”
You can read more about their quest tests, the “haunted room,” and other challenges the team is facing during this final stretch at their official moddb page here.
