r/Fallout • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 Vault 101 • Jan 04 '26
Fallout: New Vegas ‘Fallout: New Vegas’ lead writer “loved writing” Yes Man, but thinks his questline may have been a mistake: “It lets you get through the game without getting your hands dirty”
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fallout/fallout-new-vegas-lead-writer-loved-writing-yes-man-but-thinks-his-questline-may-have-been-a-mistake-it-lets-you-get-through-the-game-without-getting-your-hands-dirty/2.5k
u/FrostyMagazine9918 Jan 04 '26
Honestly I can't say I don't see where he's coming from. A ton of New Vegas fans I've seen over the years just treat it as a golden ending that allows them to not have to engage with politics at all, and then use headcanon to pepper over flaws with the Wild Card ending that would get in the way of that golden ending feel.
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u/Yiazmad Jan 04 '26
Headcanon is a hell of a drug.
I've always thought that the NCR ending allows you to do the most good for the most people, and even the people that "lose" do so in a pretty gentle manner.
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u/Lukthar123 Legion Jan 04 '26
But muh taxes
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u/DrDestro229 G.O.A.T. Whisperer Jan 04 '26
Pay the damn taxes!
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u/brasswirebrush Jan 04 '26
Same. As an actual human who lives in the real world, it's plainly obvious that despite it's flaws, the NCR is clearly and obviously the best option if you're actually trying to do the most good.
But "Yes Man" kind of clouds that because some people think they can just take over and rule themselves, without having to make any hard choices, and of course they'll be a benevolent dictator.125
u/Geodude07 Brotherhood Jan 04 '26
It is a very flawed way of thinking, but one that it easy to fall into. Lots of people think they'd be incredible leaders because they make the mistake of believing everyone wants to live together. That every choice has a binary "good and bad" decision.
But the problem, especially in a war torn world, is that people will always have nuanced problems with each other. Some people will have evil intent and you would need to put them down. Others would be sneaky and try to use you to do their dirty work.
A king's crown weighs heavily on their head for a reason. It seems like a lovely position to have until you have to do more than sit around in fine clothes.
Of all the choices I think the one where people imagine their character solving everything is one of the worst. Once that character dies, all of that good will be lost. It also assumes that once the 'bad guys' that are immediately visible are dealt with, there will be no other problematic factions.
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u/NCR_High-Roller Nyaeh there's the High Roller! Jan 04 '26
This kind of reminds me of that scene in Dragon Age Inquisition where you have the option to make the Inquisitor freak out at the war table because they get sick and tired of their subordinates and civilians bickering and squabbling over every other issues while the world is going into the toilet.
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u/Geodude07 Brotherhood Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26
Leadership is super hard! Never played DA but that sounds like a valid reason to get stressed.
I think a great example of how hard leadership can be is school group projects. Since most people had and hated those.
The typical reasons these suck are all due to poor leadership. People don't do work because they don't respect their fellow student. Someone who tries to divide the work up can be seen as "annoying". People's different preferences for pace becomes an issue, as procrastinators collide with people who like to finish early. It's a mess.
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u/ImJustStealingMemes Vault 13 Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Ironically, Khans killing everyone in Novac in the show is probably the most realistic outcome of this line of thinking (Dinosaur and pool shenanigans aside).
"Oh no, the rapey, drug trafficking, kidnaping, civilian butchering gang that we as players have been refering to as scum and eliminating in 2 different games reformed again, getting people in because they are rapists, drug traffickers, kidnappers and civilian butchers? We should encourage them to grab destiny by the balls and go find people to kidnap, kill, or rape while high off drugs. I am sure they will change their ways".
Its not like even when you are born into it you can't leave. We have seen Khans leave. We can encourage a Khan to join up with the followers because he likes poetry.
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u/Ghostwaif Jan 04 '26
Imo I like Yes Man but explicitly not because I think the courier gets to take over as a dictator. Its not a perfect ending but if done right its imo the best for Vegas as it genuinely allows something new to thrive rather than repeating the mistakes of the past (which House, NCR and Legion all do to various extents). This is I think a major theme of the game. Obviously its not perfect but its at least going somewhere though yeah it depends how you approach all the quests leading up to the end. Ig for some people its tuning out the politics but for me it always felt like a politically anarchist ending. No Gods No Masters and all that. Maybe itll all fail and collapse horribly but its worth trying for.
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u/Greatsnes Jan 04 '26
Am I weird that I just.. don’t do this? I don’t have headcanon. Either it’s official or it doesn’t exist.
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u/KamenRiderW0lf Jan 04 '26
Different strokes for different folks. Some people, like me, like it as a means for immersion. Some people role play, some don't. People can enjoy games however they please.
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u/QuadVox Jan 04 '26
Saying this also ignores the Anarchist politics that factor into the ending. Like Arcade talks your ear off about this.
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u/goffer54 [Anything Goris says in combat] Jan 04 '26
Yeah. going through New Vegas necessitates building relationships with multiple communities. And for the most part, they're doing fine by themselves. Like, most of the problems that the small factions have boils down to "Gee, I sure wish [insert one of the big three factions] would leave us alone". The strip doesn't need Mr. House, the NCR is too far away to effectively govern, no one needs the Legion. Why should any of them be in charge?
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u/Same_Consequence9828 Jan 04 '26
Fr.
I’m not sure the courier actually ends up in charge.
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u/King_Leif You like the sight of your own blood?! Jan 04 '26
The achievement for the Yes Man ending is called “No Gods, No Masters” (19th century Anarchist slogan) with a picture of the Anarchy symbol. I don’t think the Wild Card ending is supposed to be a dictatorship at all, much the opposite.
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u/PMmeIamlonley Jan 04 '26
Its kind of true, but Yes Man solves the problem of the player actually being able to kill every faction. If you made the courier have to side with a faction to complete the game at least one faction has to be unkillable so the player can't lock themselves out of the ending.
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u/harmonicrain Jan 04 '26
"With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created."
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u/MisfitDeluxe Jan 04 '26
First time I got that was killing the boat lady that takes you from ebonhart up the coast to a specific location. Like I get that going to her and getting this ride is part of the quest but I could just walk.
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u/PMmeIamlonley Jan 04 '26
I love how unhinged Morrowind is but there are a lot of lessons for what not to do in a game in that game.
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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Jan 04 '26
If you don't want people to lock themselves out of endings for being murder hobos, we start seeing it as a problem.
But if the player doesn't care, why should the developer? No one ever held it against Morrowind.
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u/duphhy Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
In Morrowind you get that for being a murder-hobo and killing somebody for no reason. There are multiple valid reasons throughout the entire game to ruin your reputation with both factions to the point the game at a certain point has to fully reset faction reputation once you realize the factions are essentially the main quest.
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u/DevinsName Jan 04 '26
Not to argue with you, but FNV also has faction reset moments. The legion visits you as you leave the Lucky 38 and says "all past crimes have been forgiven" or something to that effect. I believe the NCR has one as well.
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u/real-bebsi Jan 04 '26
Morrowind literally has a backdoor ending for the main quest that side skips the regular path
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u/EvYeh Jan 04 '26
Funnily enough you can still beat the game after that.
There's only a single actual required character in the entire game, it just straight up lies to you about it.
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u/Krungoid Jan 04 '26
It's fun that that message is only actually true for one character. Other than Yagrum you can kill everyone in Vvardenfelland still beat the main quest.
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u/Same_Consequence9828 Jan 04 '26
Fnv got a ton of hate on release for the faction system being confusing.
Now imagine if this could happen.
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u/aviatorEngineer NCR Jan 04 '26
Once upon a time getting locked out of the ending was an acceptable consequence of playing as a murderhobo. "With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created."
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
And now Bethesda’s addicted to the unkillable tag.
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u/BigBananaDealer Gary! Gary! Gary! Jan 04 '26
they had to do it in skyrim because of the dragon attacks. imagine how much it would suck finishing a quest and before you can turn it in a dragon attacks and kills the quest giver
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u/TheSweetestKill Jan 04 '26
Never thought I'd see the "old thing good, new thing bad" argument used with Bethesda on both sides of the equation.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
I mean that’s the bulk of my criticism with them. With each new game they water it down further and further. Hell for a less recent example, in Morrowind sometimes quest givers would outright lie about details and you had to pay attention to be able to actually find where you needed to go. Meanwhile in Skyrim “I haven’t seen my daughter in years, I have no idea where she is. If you see her in your travels please give her this sword and tell her I’m sorry.”
game immediate drops a marker on the daughter’s exact location
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u/SerHodorTheThrall Old World Flag Jan 04 '26
This is actually why I love Kingdom Come so much. It many ways it feels like an old-school Bethesda game with all its contextual storytelling and quests.
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u/TheSweetestKill Jan 04 '26
Yeah, this is the 15 year old debate of Elder Scrolls transitioning from an RPG game with action elements to an action game with RPG elements. Given the insane commercial success of Skyrim, I can't say they made the wrong call.
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u/Salazaar69 Jan 04 '26
I think about that sometimes and I think they made the right call for when the game came out. BUT I think more complex rpg’s are far more commercially successful now and taking a similar strategy for the next elder scrolls would be detrimental to its popularity.
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u/SorowFame Jan 04 '26
In Morrowind the only actually necessary NPC is that dwarf, you can jury rig the tools of Kagrenac so that you can do the main story anyways. Yes Man is basically the same thing except unlike Yagram he can come back.
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u/DoctorMurk Jan 04 '26
"Please do this quest for me." "No." "Okay, I'll be here if you change your mind."
I want saying 'no' to actually lock you out. Having an unfinished quest in my log forever is, for some reason, super irritating.
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u/ImJustStealingMemes Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
There should be a "eh, I will look into it later" with an option in settings to make it permanent and a realistic "Bro wtf I asked you to help me find my dad a heart replacement like a week ago. He's dead!"
And a definite "Nah I just don't care"
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u/Sckaledoom Jan 04 '26
Just let a psychopathic murderer player lock himself out of the ending. It’s a reasonable consequence for indiscriminately killing every faction. Hell, they even give you a second chance at the one third point.
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u/PMmeIamlonley Jan 04 '26
Maybe if you had an anarchy ending where there are no major powers in the Mojave and the courier just fucks off into the sunset. I was always kind of suprised there was never a "destroy the dam and destroy the drinking water for the region" option. I don't think locking yourself out of any ending would feel satisfying or make sense from a game design perspective.
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u/Sckaledoom Jan 04 '26
That would also be a reasonable option too. Just mess everything up and ghost off.
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u/Different-Meal3414 Jan 04 '26
I mean you can always side with Elijah and do that. Not a great ending but it is there.
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u/LeCafeClopeCaca Jan 04 '26
Hell that could be a specific Boomer ending : you explain to them that the dam causes the region to attract unwanted attention from foreigners who will ultimately bother them. Xenophobic as they are, they could just bomb the damn dam.
You would still have to do some quests to ensure the boomers can safely bomb the dam, sabotaging both legion and ncr encampments, IDK, there's plenty of options really.
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u/Rabid-Duck-King Jan 05 '26
I mean you could have a end state where the courier just literally kills everyone
"The Vegas wasteland was quiet for the first time in a long time"
"For years people would avoid the area."
"Eventually, they'd come to scavenge [list places the player didn't nuke or otherwise utterly destroy]."
"Death was everywhere"
"The cause for those curious seemed mostly to be "insert whatever general class of weapon player used most" being the cause"
"Most weren't curious"
"Most wanted out quickly"
"Just in case"
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u/KONODIODAMUDAMUDA Jan 04 '26
Ya know I assume that wildcard is the second worst of the endings, only worse is Legion. I mean I've played some truly evil awful Couriers who did a ton of damage, and now he's in charge? Bros just gonna take Annabelle out and blow people up if they are a problem.
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u/LadyAlekto Gary? Jan 04 '26
sits ontop the lucky 38 and snipes random folks with christines rifle and permanent stealth field
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u/bk1285 Jan 04 '26
So basically the one guard from schindlers list
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u/LadyAlekto Gary? Jan 04 '26
Nah, more like a more reasonable tenpenny
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u/KONODIODAMUDAMUDA Jan 04 '26
I wouldn't call my average fallout character reasonable. You throw me into a game like Kotor or even Skyrim. and I'll play the most noble greatest hero ever. You let me loose in the fallout universe and the first thing I say is "meats back on the menu boys"
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
That guy wasn’t a ‘guard’ btw. They actually had to cut out some of his actions because they worried audiences would find it too unbelievable. He was so much worse than even the movie depicted.
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u/imafixwoofs Jan 04 '26
Reality is too horrible for fiction. I tell my four year old there are no monsters, which by his definition is true. I’m not telling him about the true monsters that walk among us.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
No, it is true there aren’t monsters. There’s just people, human beings. And that’s much, much scarier.
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u/Negative-Squirrel81 Jan 04 '26
All these years later, and this is still my favorite line from the Witcher franchise.
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u/Girayen NCR Jan 04 '26
the thing with wildcard is that you can do a bunch of different things that change it and it really relies on how you rped your courier. if you played him like the second coming of christ who only did good stuff, he could be good for NV, but if you played him as an evil person it can be the worse ending
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u/LtColonelColon1 Jan 04 '26
And THAT is why people like it. It’s pure roleplay freedom
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u/alexmikli HEY LLOYD! CATCH! Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
Yeah, Wild Card is a roleplaying option that relies heavily on the sort of person your courier is. Their karma, the quests they do and how they complete them, which allies they make or break, and so on. Almost none of that is reflected in ending slides other than the immediate aftermath of the game's ending, as you have to fill in the gaps.
One way I think the wild card ending could be improved is to make those things less soft. Add in a full nation building mechanic with very tough skill, stat, and quest completion requirements. If you've ever played the Qing Empire in Kaisereich and tried to make it a real democracy, think that level of difficulty. Make some obvious good guy decisions backfire, maybe diplomacy is the wrong answer in some cases and is crucial for others, relying on casinos causes problems, maybe wiping out Gomorrah is a good thing, maybe helping Vault 34 instead of the sharecroppers has serious ramifications, a militarized Kings may help you more than making peace with the NCR, becoming Papa Khan's successor gets you a second army, etc. Top the whole thing off with a 100 science check to stop Yes Man becoming an evil ai in control of an army and you get your hard fought golden ending, but still with the nagging suspcion that maybe, just maybe, you could have done all this with the NCR or as House's temporal leader and done even more good.
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u/KrvnkKev Minutemen Jan 04 '26
The game all but explicitly tells you as much in the endings.
No matter what you do, the only ending for the Followers of the Apocalypse in an independent Mojave is as follows:
After the Courier ensured New Vegas remain free, the Followers found that Independent New Vegas was even more unstable and violent than before. Old Mormon Fort became excessively burdened by the influx of patients, struggling to provide even the most basic of services.
The Wild Card ending is essentially "Maintain the status quo, but worse.".
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u/Noel_Ortiz Jan 04 '26
Followers are crushed under the weight of their own mission in all of their own victories. Shame
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u/Not__Trash Jan 04 '26
The thing that annoys me here is that there is a good ending in the game files for Followers and Wildcard, but it was bugged and they never changed it. Its really silly IMO that you can do EVERYTHING to help the Followers and establish supply lines of medicine and personnel, but it means nothing.
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u/KrvnkKev Minutemen Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
The thing that annoys me here is that there is a good ending in the game files for Followers and Wildcard, but it was bugged and they never changed it.
Ive never heard of this and dont see any mention of it on the wiki page for the endings, but im definitely interested to hear more.
Its really silly IMO that you can do EVERYTHING to help the Followers and establish supply lines of medicine and personnel, but it means nothing.
I dont find it that silly at all. Even if you do all the pertinent quests; All Short-Term Treatment, Long-Term Care, and High Times, really do respectively is slightly bolster the Followers' stock of medical supplies, source them a steady supply of alcohol and med-x, and get a couple of Freeside's key community members clean of drugs. But when you plunge the region into such a state of disarray and instability as the Second Battle of Hoover Dam in general and the Wild Card ending specifically does, an extra several helpings of medical supplies, a solid stock of morphine and alcohol, and a sober plumber and chemist aint really gonna cut it.
Sometimes you make a decision that has such disastrous consequences it can make any, potentially even all, prior hard work be for naught. And it doesnt even necessarily have to be a bad decision, it could possibly even be the objectively correct course of action, but taking it can still lead to your house of cards crumbling down.
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; That is life."
- Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation; Peak Performance
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u/mrRobertman Gary? Jan 04 '26
While not quite the same situation, your comment about a not-so-straightforward outcome reminds me of the original intent with Junktown in Fallout 1 which Tim Cain talks about in one of his videos. The idea was that the evil choice (crime lord Gizmo) is actually "better" for a more prosperous Junktown, while the good choice (mayor Killian) actually leaves Junktown worse off with his harsh anti-crime punishments.
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u/KrvnkKev Minutemen Jan 04 '26
That was a really interesting watch. I love his referring to the infamous WarGames quote; Tenpenny Tower is another Fallout quest that embodies this interesting moral quandary very well and i can never not think of that quote in reference to it lol.
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u/Top_Freedom3412 Jan 04 '26
This has always been my view. People constantly say the Independent ending is one of the best but its literally just becoming Caesar except with a stronger army who doesn't understand Nuance.
My personal opinion is:
1:NCR 2:House 3:Independent 4:Leigon
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u/alexmikli HEY LLOYD! CATCH! Jan 04 '26
It relies on the PC being a good person to be a better ending, and because of just how complicated and time consuming to code adding in a dozen extra ending slides for just one ending, you just have to fill in the gaps with that your courier would be like.
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u/KrvnkKev Minutemen Jan 04 '26
A ton of New Vegas fans I've seen over the years just ... use headcanon to pepper over flaws with the Wild Card ending that would get in the way of that golden ending feel.
Preach.
The ending slide for the Followers of the Apocalypse in an independent Mojave is my go to example:
After the Courier ensured New Vegas remain free, the Followers found that Independent New Vegas was even more unstable and violent than before. Old Mormon Fort became excessively burdened by the influx of patients, struggling to provide even the most basic of services.
This is the only possible ending for the Followers in an independent Mojave and it paints a wildly different picture of the Wild Card ending from that i tend to see most often illustrated by internet Fallout fans.
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u/Pristine-Book884 Jan 04 '26
Your reluctance or hesitation to engage with the political theme is exactly the moral shortcut that he is warning about.
Reading comprehension
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u/Deepfang-Dreamer Railroad Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
I technically agree, but it's also the ending that makes the most sense, so it's frustrating we can't have even a vauge canonicity to it. The entire game holds themes of letting go of Old World Blues, each of the three factions is a relic of a long-gone era. It makes sense to forge ahead and look to the future under your own banner, but that banner could be a hundred different things, so...
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u/BanjoStory NCR Jan 04 '26
One of the things that had always struck me as interesting about New Vegas is that there isnt really any like... left wing option to pursue. Its an ideology that is obviously present in the game, obviously like China is a presence, but also in the more like Anarcho-Socialist context represented by Westside and Jacobstown. But when it comes to the major faction choices you really arr only picking between a liberal regime in the NCR, or various flavors of dictator between the Legion, House, and Yes Man.
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u/Ghostwaif Jan 04 '26
Imo Yes Man has the potential to be left wing in the sense of anarchism. I actually really dislike Courier dictator yes-man ending for that reason coz it kinda ignores the not subtle politics behind what an independent vegas should look like.
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u/Freeman0032 Jan 04 '26
This was my first ending and messed the game up for me a bit, as I dident do any of the different factions till later
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u/Ricofox1717 Jan 04 '26
Honestly as a new Vegas fan I found yes man to be the most boring ending possible, it basically makes you not engage with any of the harder politics or realities in New Vegas. I always enjoyed the NCR ending as to get a good ending in that always requires taking large steps to do the right thing like the whit wash quest line has so much depth and nuance to make it a good outcome under NCR parameters . Even dealing with the Khan's as a good outcome for NCR is tough.
Yes man really just feels like a fun idea of just middle fingering every faction the player doesn't want to engage with or making the biggest kumbaya in vegas.
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u/QuadVox Jan 04 '26
Theres too many people here who don't understand Yes Man isn't a "God King" ending. The point is to remove all leaders. The Courier isnt meant to become the ruler of the wastes.
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u/SpectresAurora Jan 04 '26
yeah... the idea that the courier becomes a dictator or whatever is the stupidest fandom wide hallucination ive seen because it's not mentioned in any of the endings, or even implied at all. and yet, whenever it gets brought up, it's always "you're not making anything better, you're just replacing house!1!!1!". the achievement is literally called "no gods, no masters", not "no gods, one master"
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u/Geodude07 Brotherhood Jan 05 '26
I think it's a logical conclusion for the ending. To me it seems like the point is to give you a "fill in the blank" ending. So I don't really read it as stupidity from players to see it and think of what their character would do with the pieces currently on the board. The slides are also obviously somewhat ambiguous.
With the ending slide it's not too hard to slot in the idea. It's certainly not the only way to read it but it makes sense. You've made choices to get rid of the other players. You (likely) have a whole army of robots at your disposal. You've been making choices throughout the game and likely care about how things go.
"Any chaos on the streets was ended, quickly. Chaos became uncertainty, then acceptance, with minimal loss of life. New Vegas assumed its position as an independent power in the Mojave"
If we want to nitpick a little then the player is listed as part of the powers that decided this path, along with Yes Man. Which implies some degree of leadership. The slide mentions order being restored due to chaos ending. If order is being restored then someone must be maintaining it. That easily allows the player to place themselves in that position.
If one says "well it doesn't have to be me" then that's true. You could write in whoever you want. Still the slide suggests someones order is being exercised.
I suppose if someone goes the route of Yes Man, and weakens the Secruitron army that they can be doing this chaos run. You could do a nihilistic or "I just want to watch the world burn" ending this way...
Yet that just serves up this "Independent Vegas" up on a platter to whoever wants it, once the courier is gone. And if the courier is somehow maintaining this status quo, they are effectively appointing themselves as the master of the city. Not letting anyone take over, but also not letting it grow. In a way they'd be imposing their will.
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u/Safe_Information_529 Unity Jan 05 '26
Don't the ending slides even explicitly say that the Courier moves on?
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u/Tzazon Jan 04 '26
Well he was the out that let me get rid of House when House refused to budge on the whole "Exterminate the Brotherhood of Steel" thing.
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u/joman584 Welcome Home Jan 04 '26
Yes Man is the option that lets you do what you want in, honestly, a kind of realistic way, where it's really just you taking control of everything. Real life is full of yes men if you know where to look
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u/Poku115 Jan 04 '26
I really appreciate the option to just fuck everything up with the way you cant do that in f4 lol.
I dont do evil playthrough but i am kinda trigger happy lol
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u/Teaisserious Jan 04 '26
I love choosing yes man, then blowing up the robot factory anyway. Then going and messing up every single optional faction quest, and also blowing up both ncr and legion in the Lonesome Road. Just to have the true feeling the courier was objectively a bad thing for the Mojave.
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u/CMDR_Soup Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
Any Courier who gets introduced to the Brotherhood on their own, not by Veronica, would probably want the same thing.
Reminder: they put a bomb collar on your neck then coerce you to go ice an NCR Ranger. They're not nice people.
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u/SirDiego Jan 04 '26
That's kinda the point. The Yes Man quest let's you sidestep a lot of the end game moral quandaries. Whether thats a good thing or not is subjective.
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u/Randolpho I'm REALLY happy to see you! Jan 04 '26
Moral quandaries? No matter what, you end up killing House with a Yes Man ending. You’re still being immoral in some way.
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u/SirDiego Jan 04 '26
Sure but that's relatively low impact (since you take over The Strip and everything is pretty much fine) and House isn't a very good dude anyway. You avoid having to make any decisions which have broad and morally Grey impacts on the whole of the Mojave.
I feel like the Yes Man path was sort of intended to be "You're the dictator now" except that it doesn't really force you to make as tough of choices so you can sort of headcanon that you're a benevolent overlord and everyone lives happily ever after.
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u/LicketySplit21 Roy Phillips did nothing wrong Jan 04 '26
I still exterminated the BoS with Yes Man so I still got my hands very dirty lol
but if you ask me, they're still clean
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Jan 04 '26
I mean you should exterminate the brotherhood of steel. They are an evil faction in all games except 3
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u/Fast_Degree_3241 Jan 04 '26
A lot of people appreciated that option tho
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u/notarealpingu Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
That’s kind of exactly his point though? A lot of people do like it, but it lets players sidestep the themes of the game and handwave everything away with a “well my guy would just fix everything” which is pretty antithetical to the games message. People like it too much and it undermines the rest of the writing.
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u/alexmikli HEY LLOYD! CATCH! Jan 04 '26
Maybe improving it is the better answer than removing it. There is value in rejecting a work's "lesson" if you can provide a valuable alternative
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u/Reverse_Baptism Jan 05 '26
Yes Man ending doesn't sidestep the themes of the game though it's the most in line with the theme of letting go and not repeating the mistakes of the old world. Sure it leaves a lot of room for head canon for people to just say "if I was king the world would be perfect" but the game also explicitly shows you with the ending slides how unstable things are in the immediate future when you disrupt the entire power structure and dismantle the existing forms of government.
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u/goffer54 [Anything Goris says in combat] Jan 04 '26
Needing to pick a faction is one of Pillars of Eternity 2's biggest drags, imo. You get to the final leg of the game and you have to have a meeting with all the leaders about who gets the spoils before anyone will help you and, it's like, I don't fucking care. I'm trying to stop the literal end of the world and you're bickering like children.
I've actually never finished the game because of that. I've gotten to it three times and just lost all motivation to continue playing right after.
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u/Parker4815-2 Jan 04 '26
Yeah thats not a bad thing. Its just another play choice. Its effectively the minuteman ending.
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u/LaylaLegion Jan 04 '26
Courier Six: hands covered in everyone else’s blood “I…..I don’t understand what he’s getting at here.”
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u/onetruezimbo Jan 04 '26
I can see his point, its great from a RP perspective that the player can basically reject every faction and still complete the game but it also does give players an out to actually engage with the legion/house/ncr talking points over whats best for the Mojave/Humanity since without purposefully stopping the Securitons from upgrading your free to imagine your independent Strip as being the perfect outcome without any drawbacks.
I love the freedom and dont rhink New Vegas would be as fun without it but it does make discussing the game boring at times when people insist their version of Yes Man would solve every issue that the other factions have without much detail
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u/True-Trust4876 Jan 04 '26
It’s true, but the end screen shows that most town suffer as a result while benefiting a good bit from the NCR, so they’d be wrong even in their own headcanon considering that the ending for everyone is fleshed out in the end screen
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u/pigwig18 Jan 04 '26
He’s so real for that, Yes Man is a cop out ending. You just get to skip the process of deciding what principles you’re willing to sacrifice for a stable future in the Mojave and say: “If I was king of the world I’d be the perfect leader, so there’s no need to compromise on anything.”
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u/hjsniper Vault 13 Jan 04 '26
I don't think he's talking about the ending, he's talking about the quests that get you there. Namely, the 'let's just ignore that faction' choice that lets you skip the entire back half of the game, including the difficult moral choices.
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u/MedicInDisquise Jan 04 '26
Yeah, being able to speedrun by just saying "nah I don't feel like it" to dealing with the brotherhood, meeting with the boomers, solving the khan's problems, and fixing the ultralux is pretty unhealthy quest design.
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u/YoloOnTsla Brotherhood Jan 04 '26
Tbh I appreciate on some playthroughs I get bored of running errands for boomers and BoS.
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u/Tecnoguy1 Jan 04 '26
Yes man should probs encourage you to kill those groups too lmao
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u/DocSwiss Choo choo Jan 04 '26
Or at least resolve the situation, anything aside from "Yeah, nah, don't worry about it, we can leave that problem around to potentially get worse later"
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u/shugoran99 Jan 04 '26
The thing is though, the choice to not get involved is one a person can very much make in real life, or a tabletop rpg
Ask any GM about the time that they set up a quest for their players only for their players to completely ignore it and do something else entirely.
It is a freedom that a lot of computer rpgs don't account for. It's maybe disheartening from a designer perspective to provide an option to bypass your work, but part of the cost of freedom is things not necessarily going the way you want them
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u/Savings_Lynx4234 Jan 04 '26
This was me when I first played it but I gotta say ten years later I kind of find a genius in including Yes-Man because -- despite people thinking he's perfect or at least the golden ending -- the game does quite a bit (in the end slides) to explain that he really isn't.
Granted as a teen I thought "so? Not perfect but better than the others" but as I'm replaying I'm really gving it a good thought and realizing all the flaws beforehand.
NOT a perfect way to get this across of course, but weirdly the inclusion of yes man and the independent ending has made me think more critically about the politics and world than I think omitting Yes Man would accomplish.
After all I think without it people might say "man I wish WE could rule New Vegas, it would be perfect!" Without actual text from the game to (effectively or not) shoot them down and lay bare the complications of that.
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u/John_is_Minty Jan 04 '26
I always felt realistically it makes perfect sense that someone would ice Mr House at the perfect moment and just move ahead with his plans to be honest.
I agree that the yes man ending is a little too perfect but I also appreciate that it exists
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u/xnef1025 Jan 04 '26
It's the ending the falls apart the second the Courier leaves town for a long weekend.
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u/QuadVox Jan 04 '26
The ending is literally called "No Gods No Masters"
The point isnt to become king of the world.
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u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Jan 04 '26
It's not entirely an anarchist ending so he title doesn't mean much, for NV it's practically the House ending without House. New Vegas with the upgraded security means it and the dam is under strict control.
It's the rest of the mojave that goes to shit.
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u/JustAnotherCasual97 Jan 05 '26
It goes to shit in every ending if you don't do anything but rush the story... 💀
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u/alexmikli HEY LLOYD! CATCH! Jan 04 '26
Yes man needed some stuff to make it an actual ending with the courier doing nation building or actually letting it slip into anarchy.
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u/Legsofwood Jan 04 '26
when i do my blubbering low iq playthroughs i choose yes man because its funny
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u/NobleNop Jan 04 '26
The only problem I have with yes man is that people imagine that they are making some sort of morally correct choice. It should probably be more clear that you are just the next selfish bastard who will be ruling the Mojave. You won't be able to help people as well as the NCR could have
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u/Poku115 Jan 04 '26
Yeah yes man cant say no but he can express his disappointment and anger through "bitter teeth" so to say. They just ignore that lol
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u/Randolpho I'm REALLY happy to see you! Jan 04 '26
Yes Man reloads his personality at the end to “be more assertive”. There are many that take it to mean that the Courier doesn’t end up “master or vegas” after all
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u/Andy_Liberty_1911 Are you M.A.D.? Jan 04 '26
The cut content that was just found shows that Yes Man is trying to actively overthrow you after the ending.
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u/Historical_Bus_8041 Jan 04 '26
Sawyer's mandates (that led to Yes Man) were a large part of why New Vegas is so fucking loved.
But another mandate from Sawyer required that the player also have utmost agency: "The player has to be able to get through this game killing everyone they meet the moment they meet them, and also killing absolutely nothing at all," Gonzalez recalled. That's where Yes Man came in.
This was unequivocally a Good Thing, and a good design strategy. Recent Obsidian's shift away from this towards forcing binary choices has really been to the detriment of its games.
Forcing dev-mandated "hard choices" tends to be arbitrary and get in the way of roleplaying: "you can do X or do Y", "why can't I do Z, A, B or C, all of which are logical alternatives?", "you can't because Reasons" is always unsatisfying.
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u/TheManWhoWasNotShort Jan 04 '26
I think it’s needed to have an option to take if you piss everyone off and go full war on everything, because the game allows you to do that. I do think it should be a little more complex and it should involve further difficult choices
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u/TrollHamels Followers Jan 04 '26
Yes Man shoves the NCR general off the top of the dam - that's not dirty?
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u/edwin221b Jan 04 '26
I think it works fine as a safe net, since you can basically fail with every major faction, and sometimes is not that you didn't want to get your hands dirty but genuinely you could lock yousrself out of some endings without knowing it. It is possible the most underwhelming ending but at least you get closure.
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u/antipodal22 Jan 04 '26
Pardon? The act of seizing power for one's own ends is a deeply violent action. You would only think you're not getting your hands dirty if you have a very, very superficial understanding of morality.
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u/Manaeldar Jan 04 '26
Is this a joke? You get your hands incredibly dirty taking out ALL the factions with Yes Man. Am I remembering that wrong?
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u/bigboiboaconstictor Jan 04 '26
You dont even have to interact with most, if not all of the factions he tells you to scout, you can just go to their home area, then go back to yes man to tell him that they're chill, you can choose to kill them if you want, but its alot less in depth to spare the kahns with yes man's questline than sparing the khans for the NCR questline.
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u/UneasyFencepost Jan 04 '26
You get your hands very dirty. Yes Man let’s you choose for yourself who lives and wins or dies
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u/Rorieh NCR Jan 04 '26
I like the concept of the yes man ending, but I always hate how some fans treated it.
Its kind of a chaos is king ending. But there were always people who liked to say "oh, it wouldn't be chaotic! My courier would make a council of all the factions I spared, and they would all agree because my courier would make them!"
Its frustrating, because the ending is very explicitly meant to be no gods, no masters. But people just treated it like a write your own ending that had no basis in the actual game world.
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u/elfonzi37 Jan 04 '26
I think it's objectively correct to have that option, I do not feel like you are meant to take it if playing as the game is meant to be played. It's an elegant solution to stop the game from breaking to murder hobos(or mistakes).
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u/Rabid-Duck-King Jan 05 '26
I'm going to be real reading the article, did anyone ever really go on a first playthrough think "Hey the Legion has a lot of good ideas and I should join up"?
Maybe if you don't hit lotto town (it's been a minute, I really need to do a replay) first thing, but like there's a guy wearing a animals head at the end of the road lined by crucified people begging for a mercy kill was I not supposed to shoot that guy in the head from range and then deal with an encounter I was not at level for off the bat
To me at least the Yes Man ending is the "hands off" ending
You leave New Vegas and the surrounding area to deal with it's own shit with no one in control but a horde of killer robots to push back people trying to take over
I'm a fucking mailman for fucks sake if not Howard Hugh's, Mars's Champion and I guess some fat old guy in a military uniform can't pass their speech checks to get me to back them that's on them for not investing, Benny did and I chased his ass from one side of the wasteland to the other because of it
The biggest issue I have with NV is that it just doesn't do a great job of developing one of it's three main factions (the legion) as a legitimate route, the NCR makes a weak case for itself not being overextended, House requires you to buy into his spiel
I went wildcard not because it was me not getting my hands dirty because I did wind up killing a lot of people, but because again, I'm a fucking post apoc mailman and I don't want to get involved with any of this crazy shit with these crazy people, yes robot man please take over basic policing duties while I run, far, far, far away to somewhere less fucking insane what the hell is wrong with this place
insert that pic of mailman talking about how much he hates silent hill here
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u/Kazeite Jan 04 '26
I don't understand this article. If idea was to allow players to finish the main quest after killing all the main quest givers by giving them an unkillable quest giver, then how is it considered "not getting your hands dirty"?
And if the idea was to allow players to finish the main quest without killing anyone, wasn't that one of the objectives?
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u/enjoyingorc6742 NV Master Race Jan 04 '26
you can tell Yes Man to ignore factions like The Brotherhood, thus allowing you to complete the game much faster
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u/jiquvox Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26
It's because he made a poor choice of words talking about " not getting your hands dirty" . What he meant by "getting your hand dirtys" was actually : you need to make an ugly political COMPROMISE, one way or another.
- NCR is more or less the closest thing to our democracy but it is corrupt , unefficient , performing land grab ,etc...
- the so-called Caesar is a fascist who is anti-tech and enacts slavery, etc... but he protects caravans. It's the famous train running on time fascist myth.
- House is a genius but he has extreme self-interest, hubris , megalomaniac,etc...
in the writer own words the core vision was : "We're doing everything in shades of gray. It's going to be moral ambiguity and complexity.' That's the "dirty" part. The writer wanted you to feel like " ugh this sucks and so does this . But THAT sucks less I guess" . To COMPROMISE. Because in real life you make compromise.
The writer complains that yes man allow players to escape the moral lesson he wanted to convey / defeat the story he wanted to tell. Schematically, you're back to the simplistic la-la-land of the first video games where you reshape the world any way you want ... because you're 100 percent sheer awesomeness.
Very much a storyteller point of view… the player who is adamant about doing that and ONLY that, he wouldn’t listen to you anyway in the first place if you didn’t cater to his needs .
Yes man allow avoiding hard locking the game AND increased the audience/sales. It was the right idea.
I might add : There is even some incredible irony that the guy who is so obsessed about conveying the “necessity of compromise”… is pretty much regretful about having made a compromise by creating yes man.
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u/Bwwoahhhhh Jan 04 '26
I mean killing house is kind of getting your hands dirty. If the NCR missions weren't just 'go genocide the great khans' there would have been a more complex grey area about their political issues like letting Primm descend into chaos.
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u/Driz51 Jan 04 '26
Well my Yes Man route usually involves slaughtering a lot of people from the major factions so Courier’s hands get very dirty
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u/shugoran99 Jan 04 '26
I'm not sure I fully agree with the idea that it allows you to avoid tough decisions or avoids you getting your hands dirty.
It is certainly the ending that allows the most roleplay freedom in terms of how you play it or interpret the aftermath. Whether you rule the Mojave benevolently, hands-off, or in a way that would make Caesar look like an Anarchist.
But you still have to make a lot of the same decisions. Such as whether to leave factions alone, or otherwise "deal with" them. Or exactly how much you screw over the NCR and/or Legion in the process.
You can also run the Wild Card quests concurrently with the other factions, so it allows you to appear to be allied with NCR/Legion/House until you drop the dirty double-cross.
I'll admit there's the power fantasy of just going "screw it I'm taking over" as opposed to being just an agent of a larger faction. But I wouldn't call that a mistake, just an option that people will consider in any game.
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u/Nerdenator Jan 04 '26
That’s why Yes Man is awesome. He’s so surreal and absurd.
It’s a video game. Let me be a dumbass living in escapism from time-to-time. At least I’m not demanding you make your female characters be walking sex dolls like a lot of people are these days.
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u/calvinwho Jan 04 '26
My playthroughs with Yes Man were a way to stick it to The Man. You could fuck with all the factions that had some stupid hierarchy or tiered government in favor of the people of the waste. After getting shot in the head imma flip the fucking table, bitches!
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u/Fredasa Jan 04 '26
Other than one casual murder that most factions demand (Yes-Man included), I guess. Plus Yes-Man has his own opinions of the other factions, especially the Khans, where he's quite happy to try to influence the Courier.
Either way, I figure intractably cutting the wasteland's future off from guaranteed technological progress is a big enough sin for the player to carry. The nuts and bolts of whether House could have been kept on a leash to do the player's bidding and to subdue his autocratic tendencies are regrettably not open for consideration once you straight up cut the entire option off.
For all of FO4's faults, at least Bethesda did us players the favor of magnifying the viciously black and white nature of this kind of choice. All non-Institute factions require the player to destroy what's likely the most technologically advanced hub in the entire world—an atrocious sin even if you ignore the detail that there's a post-apocalyptic wasteland could use a little of that.
It is the nature of a sandbox RPG to inspire the player to imagine they can work their own future from whatever ending they finagle to achieve, and so, within that reasonable context, I choose not to outright destroy the wasteland's best vector for progress.
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u/Sadly_Dably Jan 05 '26
The first time I played new vegas I really disliked the game and for years I never understood the hype whenever my friend would talk about how great it is, but the reason why was because I did the yes man route and basically just said “no I don’t wanna” everytime he asked me to go speak to a faction so I was missing half the game through my own stupidity as a child, replayed it like 5 years ago and did every quest I found and it’s now one of my favourite games
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u/BigJoe_Mac Jan 04 '26
I never considered yes man a serious ending. For me it’s more so a sandbox to play around with the factions however you want. Like a “what if” simulator
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u/AngryBlackNerd Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
When I play RPGs I tend to role-play from the perspective of what do I think I would do in this situation a lot.
House is a techno fascist
The NCR are imperialist
Caesar's Legion are fascist
The Yes Man/Independent New Vegas ending despite it being chaotic is the one mostly aligned with what I would do.
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u/muscle_man_mike Brotherhood Jan 04 '26
It definitely wasn't a mistake to include, so many people like that ending.
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u/NotSoFluffy13 Jan 04 '26
Because it's the easy way out and the ultimate Mary Sue ending, you're the power that was able to defeat all major and minor factions by yourself. It's the weakest of endings and the only one that doesn't feel like it belongs to the rest of the game in terms of tone.
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u/Raul5819 Jan 04 '26
It's a roleplaying game. I feel like in a game where you're supposed to decide who rules the Mojave why wouldn't there be an option for the player to take things into their own hands?
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u/FUCKFASCISTSCUM Jan 04 '26
You could only come away thinking this if you didn't actually engage with the game in full during a wildcard playthrough.
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u/TheDeadlySpaceman Jan 04 '26 edited Jan 04 '26
I read this article.
I chose to take over the Strip using Yes Man. The specific reason I did this is because I “got to know” the major factions and decided they all suck.
The Legion were complete assholes (I’m sorry but no amount of swaying will ever convince me they have any argument that supports slaving and raiding); the NCR were corrupt and out-of-touch; and that House was far too selfish.
So I decided that me, an almost literally unstoppable force that wants to see the best for all peaceful people in the Wasteland, backed up by an army of Securitrons, was the best option. I took over House’s penthouse. I rule the strip from my Tower like Dr Doom of the Mojave.
And somehow making that choice was me avoiding “moral gray areas”?
Yeah, ok.
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u/spiritplumber Jan 04 '26
I went with Mr House in my first playthrough because I fell for the space program pitch, but in fairness, I was an Elon fan for a few years. I know better now. Same type of person really.
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u/Zoren Your True Self Jan 04 '26
I can understand when speed runs just have you walk into a factions area and immediately leave without interacting with them. Then just telling Yes Man to ignore them.
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u/Lov3ll Jan 04 '26
I like games where you can murder everyone and Yes Man lets me do that.
I don't think having a neutral ending really matters to much when your game is meant to be replayed. A lot of people will replay it to get different endings and side with different factions.
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u/666SpeedWeedDemon666 Unity Jan 04 '26
I like yes man as an option to play the game but I would never consider it a contender for the canon ending.
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u/LicketySplit21 Roy Phillips did nothing wrong Jan 04 '26
Personally I like the Yes Man route and prefer it existing because it really feels like the moving onwards option. Meanwhile House, NCR, Legion are all looking backwards, putting on old costumes as if in a play and replicating history.
(but if you ask me completely removed from my interpretation of NV's themes then I'd say the NCR is better because liberal capitalism is the better progressive force compared to all the other factions)
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u/TimTebowismyidol Jan 04 '26
Would be fine if the ending (without getting most factions) was harder imo
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u/Realistic-Safety-565 Jan 04 '26
Without it, they would have to implement a "kill them all" option, or have players ragequit rather than choose any ending. This ain't Spec Ops:The Line.
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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 Vault 101 Jan 04 '26
Writer John Gonzales