Aug 23, 2010 12:01 GMT  ·  By

Fallout: New Vegas will not allow players to continue exploring the game's world after the main quest is over, just like Fallout 3 before the Broken Steel downloadable content pack. Obsidian has stated that this is because the player can fundamentally alter the environment at the end, making further playthroughs impossible.

Speaking to 1Up, Josh Sawyer, project director for Fallout: New Vegas, declared that there was a good reason for the title coming to a complete end when the main story is done.

He said that, “We put a lot of effort into the ending slides -- we know those slides are really popular with people so we want to make sure there's a huge amount of variety and reactivity with that stuff.

“We weren't really focused on new features so much as to add a really rich sense of reactivity to the players and the choices they make.”

Apparently, the was a plan at the beginning of New Vegas' development of supporting post-end gameplay, but it was scrapped because of the major changes that the game world faces depending on the players' decisions.

The developer explained that, “this is what it basically came down to: either have the changes feel really major in the end slides and then have them not be very major after the end of the game, or make them really minor and not that impactful.”

Sawyer assured that the players will definitely be warned that the Fallout: New Vegas ends before committing, advising them to either save the game and continue or postpone the final quest and continued exploring the fascinating wasteland.

Fallout: New Vegas is being developed by Obsidian Entertainment, a studio that houses many members of the team that created the original two installments in the series. While it is still using the same engine the powered-up Fallout 3, it was promised that New Vegas will improve the experience in every way, from the writing to the even more diverse combat options.

Fallout: New Vegas will be released on the 19th of October on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Update: Corrected the release date as pointed out by reader Lone Wanderer.