At full power, Fallout: New Vegas is arguably the best Fallout game ever made, courtesy of how it gets to combine the new systems of Fallout 3 with, well, better writing than that of Fallout 3.
Obsidian’s New Vegas is a near-perfect project of a Fallout game, but the development was rushed to the point of the game coming out in a very buggy state. This usually spells catastrophe, but fans took to fine-tuning the game, and thus we got a bunch of glorious mods that you should consider getting for maximizing your odds of succeeding and having fun in New Vegas.
NVSE – New Vegas Script Extender
I apologize for starting with a “boring” one, but I assure you you won’t be disappointed. NVSE doesn’t do anything fancy to your game by itself, but it expands upon the original game’s scripting capabilities without changing its original executable file. It is essential for getting many of the best mods to work, so I urge that you don’t ignore it.
FNV 4GB Patcher
The base version of New Vegas only ever uses up to 2GB of your system’s RAM. I value that the game doesn’t try to take over my entire resource pool, but that’s a low amount — especially by today’s standards. The 4GB Patcher makes your game immediately aware that it can use up to 4GB of your RAM. It even makes NVSE, the mod listed above, load automatically. It’s yet another mod that will bring about low-key massive quality-of-life improvements.
Note: Only install this mod on either the Steam or GoG versions of the game, as those are the only ones that support it, and the only ones that I can say I truly recommend.
Stability combo: New Vegas Anti Crash + Stutter Remover + Mod manager + Save manager
To make your game as stable as possible, I recommend the Anti-crash mod, which works in tandem with the stutter remover, as stutter is yet another huge source of the game’s instability. The mod that will complete your inoculation against the game’s lack of stability is the CASM with MCM, which creates a new save system that works much better than the game’s original one.
The Living Desert
Getting to New Vegas after you’ve played Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3, games whose worlds are filled with scripting events that greatly fuel the games’ sense of immersion, might leave your wasteland-dweller feeling a tad underwhelmed. Fear not, as this mod adds over one hundred new NPCs and various new interactions that will make your journeys way more interesting.
New California
Turning what’s good into something great rules, but sometimes you want something completely new. That’s what you get with New California, a mod that features an unofficial story prequel to New Vegas set on the West Coast. Mods tend to showcase the unexpected technical prowess of fans, but this one also shows the community’s dedication toward lore expansion and dialogue creation. New California proves a great addition for anyone who wants more Fallout.
NMCs_Texture_Pack
Though I’d argue that the looks of New Vegas still hold up to this day, it’s completely natural for a newcomer to want the game to look sharper. The NMCs Texture Pack is likely the most extensive texture pack out there. Install it to replace the game’s landscapes, roads, vehicles, buildings, building interiors, and objects with new photograph-based textures that will make the game look much more capable of battling it out with today’s games to get your attention.
Uncut Wasteland
As it is sadly known, we never got to see the full vision Obsidian had for New Vegas realized. A great amount of stuff got cut before and after release, so fans naturally took to digging up all sorts of cut assets and gluing them in a functional manner to the game we ended up with. Works such as Uncut Wasteland have New Vegas joining the ranks of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and Knights Of The Old Republic II as the games most improved upon by the invaluable efforts of community restoration.
Fallout Character Overhaul
Remember the backlash Oblivion got for its character face models? New Vegas’ characters never looked that weird, but that didn’t stop fans from making them look much better. Fallout Character Overhaul sets out to accomplish a simple task, that of bringing more beauty to the wasteland via better textures and meshes, and it passes the test with flying colors.
Nevada Skies
We now have mods that improve the looks of the wasteland and its populace, but no nuclear winter is complete without weather effects. Nevada Skies introduces a wide array of advanced dynamic weather effects and skyboxes that ensure that just contemplating the sky will never feel like wasting your time on the wasteland.
Wasteland Defense
The only thing I love about Fallout 4 that I don’t have in New Vegas is the possibility of creating and defending my settlements. Luckily, that’s only true if I only have the base game, as the awesome Wasteland Defense mod made settlement defense a thing in New Vegas long before Fallout 4 was a thing.
