Massive Fallout mod, "New California", launches in October
Fallout: New California is an enormous New Vegas total conversion that includes an original story, side quests, and eight companions.
Bethesda's next official Fallout game is Fallout 76, which from all appearances will be more of an online survival game than a single-player RPG. Thankfully, there are still places where you can find the classic Fallout experience - especially in the modding community.
For the past five years, Radian-Helix Media has worked on a Fallout: New Vegas modification called "New California". This massive total conversion follows an adopted Vault 18 resident who is forced into the wasteland when his home is attacked by an enemy force. The story campaign acts as a prequel to New Vegas where your decisions influence the conflict between the NCR, Survivalist Army, and Super Mutants. (Thanks to Polygon for the story details.)
From all appearances, the finished mod will be a complete Fallout game in its own right. The campaign includes two major story paths, two sub-paths, eight companions, and a huge range of side quests to complete. Radian-Helix has said New California is feature complete, but will take another four months to flesh out those side quests.
"You hit this story with huge replete branches 16,000 lines of dialogue long you expect some little moments with characters off to the side of the big arcs, and there just aren’t any," creator Brandan Lee wrote on Moddb. "I’d also like to take time to revise some plot holes and gaps in the open possibilities that appeared in testing."
Thankfully, New California currently has a release date of October 23, 2018. Radian-Helix will also offer beta sign-ups in July to test the main quest line. If Fallout 76 really is launching in July, that should be a great month for fans of the series.
New California will be available for PC versions of New Vegas at launch.