Fallout: New Vegas is a masterpiece of a game that had everything going against it. Not only did the team have a tight budget, but also time constraints and unreasonable deadlines that they managed to meet. To create a detailed world with such a compelling narrative is a fantastic feat. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t aspects of the game that can’t improve.
If you want to increase the enjoyment you get out of New Vegas, either by extending gameplay with extra quests or by adding little life enhancements to make the experience run more smoothly, then mods are the way to go.
That doesn’t mean that every mod is worth trying. So here is a list of the best mods available for Fallout: New Vegas.
Brave New World
The production of Fallout: New Vegas was made on a tight schedule, and while Obsidian somehow managed to create a classic that’s still enjoyed by thousands of gamers to this day, other aspects of the game had to suffer in return. In this case, it was the voice casting.
That’s not to say that Fallout: New Vegas doesn’t have good voice acting. On the contrary, every single voice actor involved in the original voiceover is talented, but things can get tricky when one person has to record voiceovers for more than twenty or thirty characters at a time.
The result of that is that many NPCs’ voices feel rehashed and even monotone. Brave New World accomplishes something great. The creators of this mod cycled through over 30,000 auditions to voice 145 NPCs through the game, and it shows. The difference is like day and night.
Rehashed voices of characters that are meant to represent entirely different people now have a new voice that better complements their personalities and attributes. Fallout: New Vegas is brought on par with triple-A games of the modern era thanks to the effort of everyone behind Brave New World.
Combined Community Sound Pack
The Combined Community Sound Pack is a team effort in the Fallout: New Vegas modding community that adds a massive compilation of user-made sounds. With brand new firing sounds for nearly all weapons, CCSP stands out from the rest of the mods of this list the same way that Brave New World does: by focusing on your ears rather than your eyes.
Improving the audio of the game not only makes the world more immersive but more fun to play, too, as you can differentiate the weapons being fired. No more generic cracks or pops every time a gun is fired.
Now, you’ll be able to tell what weapon characters are using based on their sound only, even from a distance.
Fallout New Vegas Redesigned 3
Fallout: New Vegas is a classic; there’s no understating that. The game has, however, aged in a lot of ways. And while there are many great games out there that can be significantly enjoyed regardless of graphics, the truth is that Bethesda’s models tend to look uncanny even in their most recent entries.
New Vegas Redesigned 3 attempts to fix this by re-measuring facial proportions, fixing hair color issues, and tweaking little details that add to the experience, such as wounds and bruises on injured characters.
The anatomy and proportions of many NPCs and models are fixed to make them closer to what they’d look like in real life, as well as some changes in the colors and lighting, so keep this in mind if you intend to add an ENB with this mod on.
Unofficial Patch NVSE Plus
The Unofficial Patch NVSE Plus is a Fallout: New Vegas mod that fixes a wide selection of bugs and glitches that permeate the vanilla game. While New Vegas is an Obsidian creation, it is still using Bethesda’s engine. As a result, New Vegas is littered with bugs of all types, funny ones and game-breaking ones like other Bethesda titles.
And, of course, the modding community has come to the rescue to try and fix as many of them as possible to provide players with a smoother gaming experience in the amazing world that Fallout: New Vegas offers.
Dust Survival Simulator
Dust Survival Simulator is the ideal mod for those who love a challenge. This mod was created for the people who think that the desolated wastelands of Fallout: New Vegas deserve a more realistic take on survivability in a nuclear apocalypse setting.
Dust makes an emphasis on lore and story, with an overhaul of nearly every aspect of the vanilla game to present a more difficult and gruesome take on New Vegas, presenting a survival horror atmosphere.
Combat, weather, enemies, loot, and many more aspects have been overhauled with the feeling of dread in mind. You’re free to explore and create your own story. You’re stripped of the main character status and have become just another survivor, one that must face the horrors of the apocalypse and try to stay alive.
NMCS Texture Pack For New Vegas
NMCS Texture Pack for New Vegas is a stunning Fallout: New Vegas mod that changes almost the entirety of the in-game graphics, making the textures more detailed and sharp. Everything from roads to landscape, trees, buildings, interiors, and a lot more is changed for a more modern-looking experience.
One impressive fact about this mod is that it was created by one person. So, if you intend to download this mod, which I highly recommend you to do, keep in mind the amount of time, effort, and talent that went through to create such amazing textures.
Weapons Mod Expanded – WMX.
Weapon Mods Expanded – WMX is the perfect example of balance between game developers and modders. When Obsidian created Fallout: New Vegas, they seemed to take inspiration from a Fallout 3 mod created by Antistar and implemented a similar weapon system in their game.
In return, Antistar expanded on that with Weapons Mod Expanded – VMX, adding several weapons to the game and overhauling the mod slots. Modifications to certain weapons can also be removed. This mod is perfect for those who love to customize their weapons and make them unique.
Fallout Character Overhaul
Fallout Character Overhaul offers a fresh and amazing-looking change to the look of the characters in Fallout: New Vegas. The new high-quality textures and meshes on the characters’ faces make them look nicer and more realistic.
This mod also allows you to customize your character further with over 130 unique races with their own head meshes to choose from and add more diversity to your character’s facial features.
Ghouls, raiders, and other NPCs also have a different style that affects males and females and better distribution of age groups. In conclusion, a must-have mod that adds life to Fallout’s world: New Vegas without any hits to performance.
Roleplayers Alternative Start Fallout New Vegas
Roleplayers Alternative Start for Fallout: New Vegas offers the best gift for a roleplaying gamer, and that is choice. With this mod, you’ll be able to start fresh in a role that best fits you, making the already rich world of New Vegas more interesting by allowing you to craft a story of your own for your character.
You can start as whoever you want to be and roleplay the way you want to without the burden of waking up with Doc Mitchell with every new character you make. Your skills will determine what you get with over 95 hand-picked locations to choose from across the wasteland. The mod also gives you the option to start poor, well-off, or wealthy. No matter what history you choose, every new character will have different starting gear and items every time.
Clarity
While many gamers tend to focus on graphics to talk about realistic virtual worlds, some seem to forget that one aspect that can make a world either feel unreal and plastic or immersive. That one aspect that can make all the difference in the world without overhauling the graphics: The color scheme.
Clarity is a Fallout: New Vegas mod that changes the RGB entries, so the game no longer uses unnatural filters and orange hues that overlay the landscape. Instead, you’ll get a more colorful yet realistic take on ambient colors as well as replacing light sources to make them feel more natural. This mod also comes with an additional file called Dark Nights that modifies nighttime values to enhance that nighttime feeling.
Fallout New California
Fallout: New California is an amazing mod that adds a completely new story with hours upon hours of gameplay. It has fully-voiced dialogue, a new world to explore, and many different narrative paths to see.
In Fallout: New California, you play as an orphan kid from Vault 18. Once you start, you’ll find yourself immersed in the middle of a conflict between several factions and will be able to choose different paths based on your dialogue choices, perks, and a lot more. This is one of the most complete Fallout: New Vegas mods out there, so much so that you’ll feel like you’re playing a sequel or spin-off of New Vegas.
EVE — Essential Visual Enhancements
Essential Visual Enhancements, or EVE for short, introduces a vast myriad of effects like new critical kill animation scenes, HD blood effects as well as fire and explosions, new bullet impacts, new textures, character reactions, and so much more.
While simple in principle, this mod adds small details to the gameplay that make Fallout: New Vegas a lot more satisfying to play, not just visually.
A World Of Pain
A World of Pain is a fairly comprehensive mod that adds over 170 new and intense locations to explore and loot. The amount of diversity in these new places is also pretty impressive. There are subway tunnels, buildings, vaults, and even a maze-like interlinked underground complex that will make the already massive world of New Vegas feel all the more expansive.
Not only that, but it also comes with several questlines to complete, as well as interesting NPCs and challenging enemies. If you’re in dire need to extend the gameplay of one of the best RPG shooters out there, then A World of Pain is the perfect mod to make you feel like you’re playing a Fallout: New Vegas DLC.
Fallout Mod Manager – FOMM
Fallout Mod Manager, also known as FOMM, is one of the most reliable mod managers for Fallout: New Vegas. The mod makes it easy to install, organize, and store mods.
It includes a fail-safe mod install so that if one of your mods fails to install, it will delete the whole mod instead of leaving it half-installed. It also allows you to retrieve missing information about the mod and upgrade them without having to re-activate them and without changing which mods overwrite which. The level of control you have is unparalleled and a must-have if you plan to have several mods installed in Fallout: New Vegas.
Project Nevada
Project Nevada is unique amongst the other mods for Fallout: New Vegas. This mod has organized modules that make it easier to install, customize, and play around with it. It adds some features that make New Vegas feel fresh and modern, with many elements borrowing from other popular first-person shooters such as improved bullet time, dynamic crosshair, Grenade Hotkey, Sprint, and a lot more.
This mod provides many life improvements such as enhanced vision mods, immersive health visuals, and primary needs such as hunger, thirst, or sleep deprivation. You don’t have to have all of these elements in your game if you don’t want to, as mod allows you to customize your experience to best suit you.
It also adds new features with cybernetic implants and your high-tech equipment. The mod also allows you to rebalance your gameplay to configure your leveling speed, level caps, skill points, and a myriad of stealth, movement, damage, and combat options. There’s a lot more to unpack in this mod that you’ll have to try for yourself.
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