Anatomy of a Side Quest: Beyond the Beef

YouTube channel Game Maker’s Toolkit analyzed the Beyond the Beef questline from Fallout: New Vegas, a questline notorious for the large amount of possibilities offered in terms of ways to complete objectives and outcomes. To prove the point, the video offers no less than five (thankfully sped up) playthroughs of the quest with different builds and intents, showing just how flexible the quest scripting is. Take a look for yourselves:

While not all of New Vegas quests were this robust (a few are infamous for their simple fetch tasks and the amount of loading screens involved), I feel like Beyond the Beef really represents the game’s design ethos as a whole, and also the game’s failings. It includes an incredible amount of choices and consequences but it’s also prone to break often, and some of the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

I have to admit that I actually enjoyed my Fallout 4 playthrough, but I really missed quests such as this in Bethesda’s sequel. I really wouldn’t mind seeing another 3D Fallout spin-off — from Obsidian or even another talented RPG studio — with a focus on more complex questline and less emphasis put on combat, scavenging and exploring.