Fallout: New Vegas director debunks popular fan theory over a decade later

Fallout: New Vegas game director Josh Sawyer has finally put to bed a popular fan theory 13 years after the game was released. 

In Fallout: New Vegas, your main task is to make it to the titular location, meaning the player has to embark on a journey across a post-apocalyptic landscape, avoiding all sorts of enemies. 

There are plenty of ways to go about this, but to get there faster there are a number of paths you can risk your life to travel through, including the Black Mountain and Quarry Junction – two of the most dangerous areas in the game.

For over a decade, fans of arguably Bethesda’s best Fallout game have wondered if these areas were actually glitched due to how difficult they are to traverse, but according to the game director, that’s not the case – it was a creative decision designed for those who need to get better at the game (via GamesRadar+).

Over on Twitter, Sawyer quoted a Hard Drive post that made light of the fact that developers have to watch fans take advantage of missed bugs for their speed runs, saying, “This but unironically.”

A fan then responded by bringing up Fallout: New Vegas, and said: “Not sure if this is a glitch but the ‘crouching in Black Mountain without being detected by super mutants to get to free side at level one’ move is a tradition in every [playthrough] at this point.”

“Not a glitch,” Sawyer revealed. “When F:NV [Fallout: New Vegas] launched, players thought that Black Mountain and Quarry Junction were there to keep players from getting to The Strip. Wrong. They were there for players to Git Gud or Die.”

The game director followed up in the thread and added: “Same with Scorpion Gulch. You can get through it. You just have to pace yourself and be prepared.”

Finally, after 13 years, fans can finally let go of this theory; it turns out you just need to get better at the game.

Stay up to date with Bethesda’s next big release with our guide to everything we know about Elder Scrolls 6 so far and why not check out picks for the best Xbox Series X games while you wait?