Fallout: New Vegas is still held up as one of the best RPGs to use the first-person Bethesda format, but it famously wasn’t developed by Bethesda. Obsidian Entertainment created the Mojave Wasteland, and there are many subtle ways that the smaller studio handled the core tenets of the Bethesda RPG formula that Bethesda itself could learn from for The Elder Scrolls 6.
Open-world RPGs have always been faced with one central dilemma. Do they prioritize character-driven storytelling and depth over freedom, or do they prioritize freedom and non-linear exploration at the risk of seeming shallow? Fallout: New Vegas demonstrates a fascinating compromise with one of its best characters that could teach Bethesda a thing or two about open-world storytelling in The Elder Scrolls 6.
Victor is one of Fallout: New Vegas’ best executed open-world characters and a Securitron with a distinct cowboy face on his display and an affected western drawl. He rescues the Courier from a shallow grave after they’re shot and left for dead, but immediately Obsidian begins using the open world to hint that Victor is more than he lets on. Far later in the game, it’s revealed he’s working for Mr. House.
Goodsprings, the first location players see in the New Vegas map is full of details that make Victor seem strange and compelling. Easy Pete, who sits outside the Prospector Saloon, will comment that the robot is harmless, but Trudy who runs the saloon is far more uneasy with his presence in town. Victor’s shack makes the character even more fascinating – there’s an American flag hanging over the front, and the inside is clearly set up for a human, not a robot. In fact, it’s one of the nicer homes in town.
Even the affable Doc Mitchell suggests that Victor’s outward appearance “ain’t the whole picture.” With some initial digging, it becomes clear that Victor’s affectations extend far beyond his accent – he appears to have constructed a strange mock-human existence in the Mojave Wasteland.
Once the player is out in the world, Victor will show up to save them from one of their first combat encounters. The line is blurred even further – the robot is helpful, but must have been following the Courier to begin with.
After arriving in Primm the character can talk to Jonathan Nash and learn that the Courier’s initial package was one of six items – the rest decoys – that Victor hired the Mojave Express to deliver. Victor is a very mysterious character, especially towards the start of the game, and the revelation that he hired the Courier borders on fridge horror. Almost all of the storytelling done with the character is dispersed over the game’s open-world – players learn more about Victor as they explore and talk to more people.
Compare this to another character who shows up early in an RPG to save the player’s life. Ralof is the first character to speak a line in Skyrim, and just playing through the introduction players would be forgiven for thinking he might be a more fleshed out returning character. It’s Ralof who stays behind to help the player escape when Alduin attacks Helgen and – assuming most players didn’t follow the legion soldier who nearly executed them to avoid a clerical error – Ralof is the character most players travel to Riverwood with.
After that, however, Ralof practically disappears from the game. He will return as an NPC if the player joins the Stormcloaks, but his character development ends after the Helgen incident. Ralof doesn’t need to have a mysterious ulterior motive like Victor in New Vegas, but there were so many more things Bethesda could have done with one of the few characters players might actually feel attached to at the start of the game.
For example, Victor shows how interesting it can be for characters to dynamically reappear in the open world after their introduction. All players would know Ralof from the introduction, and after escaping Helgen this could lead to some far more interesting interactions. For example, Ralof could have been the man players find being tortured by the Thalmor at the end of the quest in their embassy, instead of a random NPC who gets no additional dialog after being freed.
If the player escaped Helgen with the Stormcloaks, they could have encountered Ralof as part of a Stormcloak raid out in the world, where he might recognize the player and possibly vouch for them. If they left with the Imperials, they could have found Ralof injured outside the cave, creating an opportunity for unique interactions with both Ralof and Hadvar. Ralof and characters like him don’t need to become a fully fleshed out Mass Effect-style companions, but like Victor they could have been integrated far more into the world at different opportunities.
Instead, Ralof is practically forgotten after being a key part of one of the most famous RPG introductions of the last 20 years. The Elder Scrolls 6 doesn’t need to make its story more linear or its world less open to find more opportunities for memorable characters to return throughout the world. This doesn’t just apply to Ralof – it’s rare to meet any Skyrim character at a later date or a new location having already met them earlier in the game.
Obsidian doesn’t do much with Victor in Fallout: New Vegas to transform him from a gimmicky part of the intro into a mysterious and compelling character. All the game does it find more opportunities for events to be linked to Victor so that it feels like he has a more active role in the world than a character like Ralof. The world of The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to feel less like a passive sandbox waiting for the player to explore it, and more like a living, breathing world where players can have surprising encounters with old friends and enemies to build genuine connections with characters in the open world over the course of the story.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development.
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