10 Things You Probably Missed in Fallout New Vegas

Top 10 Things You Probably Missed in Fallout: New Vegas

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re looking at quests, Easter eggs, items, and events that most players don’t find in “Fallout: New Vegas”.

Rawr’s Talon

The Divide is one of the deadliest locations in the franchise, so maybe you didn’t want to test your mettle by scouring it for this difficult boss during “Lonesome Road”. But it’s worth it if you do, as you’re treated to a rare, scripted event as you enter a cave behind a water pipe, full of skeletons. There, you’ll encounter Rawr, who doesn’t pull his punches. Loot Rawr’s Talon from his body, and you can then make the First of Rawr Deathclaw gauntlet. Interestingly, though players of “Fallout 3” will be familiar with the Deathclaw gauntlet, it was scrapped in “New Vegas”; the Fist of Rawr is the only one you can get in the whole game. Its name will also change to “Fist of the North Rawr” if you’ve got Wild Wasteland active.

FISTO’s Refunds

You’ll only have found this common glitch if you went back to FISTO to see him again after the end of “Wang Dang Atomic Tango”, one of the best side quests in the game – particularly if you have Wild Wasteland active. We’re not going to judge you for who you want to spend a few, fun hours with, but if you get cold feet and back out of the transaction with FISTO, he actually gives you ten caps. This glitch is present in all versions of the game and has never been patched out, making this an easy way to get potentially infinite caps – if you have time to spare. Or you can just max out your luck and hit the slot machines.

Snuffles

If you listened to everybody’s advice and DIDN’T try to get to Vegas via the I-15, you may have never gone to Sloan or met its most interesting resident. This small town is for the workers of Quarry Junction, who now have nothing to do other than warn people away thanks to the quarry being overrun with deathclaws. But forget about the deathclaws, because Sloan is also home to a friendly, pet mole rat, Snuffles. Snuffles has been injured, and in this unmarked quest, you can heal her after passing a medicine skill check of 30. If humans really put their minds to it, maybe all of the wasteland’s mole rats can be rehabilitated into friendly pets.

Alerio

Most people don’t play through RPGs by killing or trying to kill every single character they meet, and especially not important characters they meet very early on. It’s unlikely, then, that a first-time player would have killed Vulpes when you encounter him in Nipton; he and the Legion are extremely difficult combatants so early on, so engaging violently is just a bad idea. However, Vulpes CAN be killed here, and if you do, the Legion has to send somebody else to the Strip to give the Courier the Mark of Caesar during “Render Unto Caesar”. This is Alerio, who makes it clear he doesn’t think you’re worthy of this gift after what you did to Vulpes. And, yes, if you want, you can kill him, too; the Securitrons don’t even care.

The Humble Stone

Another unmarked quest, this one you find in Boulder City after you track the Great Khans down. While there’s a tense hostage situation going on between the Khans and the NCR, you can get waylaid and talk to Private Kowalski, who’s paying respects to his brother, who died in the First Battle of Hoover Dam in 2277. But maybe you don’t like the NCR, in which case, you can deface the War Memorial in Boulder City, which leads to a hilarious dialogue interaction where you can insult Kowalski. He’ll turn hostile and, if you kill him, you’ll get NCR Infamy, but it’s a fun moment. And if you deface the stone and pass the speech check to apologize, you get some free XP.

Gauss Rifle

This deadly weapon first appeared in “Fallout 2”, and then reappeared in this form during the “Operation: Anchorage” DLC for “Fallout 3”. But it’s a lot harder to acquire in “Fallout: New Vegas”. Most, if not all, first-time players will have picked the Wild Wasteland trait – and a huge number of returning still choose it, too. But you can’t get the Gauss Rifle if you do, because it drops in place of the Alien Blaster and the spaceship, so that you don’t miss out on a great weapon by not choosing the trait. It’s up to you whether you prefer Wild Wasteland’s wackiness and the over-powered Alien Blaster to the grittier, realistic wasteland that gives you the Gauss Rifle.

Horowitz

Though “Hard Luck Blues” is a big, named side quest, it can be easily missed if you’re not doing your due diligence. By visiting the sharecropper farms, you find out that the water supply is contaminated, and that the source of the problem might be Vault 34. Vault 34 is full of ghouls, except for in one room, where you talk to some sentient residents through a terminal. But do you save the vault dwellers and doom the farms, or save the farms at the expense of the dwellers? If you save the dwellers, you can later encounter them in the refugee shelters at Aerotech. Talk to Horowitz and he’ll give you a “vault trinket” – except, you don’t actually get anything, because the interaction doesn’t seem to have been finished.

Pimp-Boy 3 Billion

Most of the factions eventually send you into the Strip’s various casinos to complete their quests, with “How Little We Know” being the quest for the Omertas in Gomorrah. But if you complete this quest just right, you can unlock this alternate Pip-Boy. What you need to do is complete the quest and re-negotiate Mick’s deal with the Omertas, who have stopped buying guns from Mick & Ralph’s. You can either persuade Big Sal, or release Troike, the Omertas’ smuggler, from his contract, and destroy the Omertas’ current gun shipment. You then get this gold-plated 3 Billion. However, if you’re playing as a female character, the Pimp-Boy will be at a weird angle – unless you fix that with mods.

Suits You, Sarah

Only two named quests send you into Vault 21, one of the most pleasant vaults in the franchise. When you arrive, you’ll meet Sarah, who expresses an interest in buying more vault suits for the gift shop. To complete this unmarked quest, you have to bring her thirty vault suits from the Wasteland; Vault 21 jumpsuits don’t count, and while she CAN be convinced to take Boomer suits, they also don’t count to the thirty you need. Once you scavenge all those vault suits, deliver them to her for caps, fame, and a special reward – yes, Sarah is a romanceable character, and she’ll sleep with you after you complete this quest. This nets you the Well Rested bonus.

Johnny Five-Aces

You may have found this Wild Wasteland instance but not known what it was. Well, you’re not alone, because this is one of the most obscure Easter eggs ever included in an Obsidian game. It was added by Josh Sawyer and references a game idea called “The Zybourne Clock” floated on the Something Awful forums way back in 2003. The character of Johnny, AKA Johnny Five-Aces thanks to his trademark playing cards, was supposedly going to be a character in “The Zybourne Clock”. This failed game is more well-known nowadays thanks to some of its former developers talking about it publicly, but in 2010, there was a very high chance you didn’t get the joke.

Let us know in the comments how many playthroughs it took you to find all these moments!