The ambitious Fallout New California total conversion mod has released today for Fallout: New Vegas. It is essentially a new Fallout game set between the events of Fallout 2 and New Vegas. The fan project has also been known as Project Brazil, and has been in development since 2009 originally as a mod for Fallout 3.
The team behind Fallout New California launched the mod across a number of hosting websites today. The mod is a prequel to Obsidian Entertainment’s New Vegas which released in 2010. The mod has a new, voice-acted storyline following the player character in San Bernadino, California. Originally from Vault 18, the player character is able to impact the outcome of the story based on player choices. The game tells of what happened after fighting between the Enclave and the New California Republic. According to its creators, New California can take up to 30 hours to experience.
Brandan Lee is the lead developer on the project, which had significant help from members of the Fallout modding community. Lee was interviewed by Red Bull in 2015, where he talked about development was going, and what sets their mod apart from previous games in the series. By that time, Bethesda had given Lee and his co-workers the go-ahead for releasing the mod. The project ran into a slight issue when Fantasy Flight Games announced an expansion to their Fallout board game titled New California. Bethesda affirmed that Lee and his team could keep working on the project under its current name.
Fallout: New California is a massive undertaking for a fan project. A FAQ posted on the mod’s Moddb page has a lot of tidbits about the release. The game’s unique map is roughly two-thirds the size of New Vegas‘. New California has 14,877 voiced character lines provided by 60 voice actors. A lot of mods are compatible including Project Nevada, Solid Project, The Frontier, weapon and combat mods, and ENB mods.
Many in the Fallout community have been anticipating the mod since it was originally revealed as Project Brazil. Nexus Mods briefly crashed after the mod went live on their site. New California requires the base New Vegas game to play. You can find the mod on Nexus Mods, ModDB, and through the mod’s dedicated Discord server.
