The best mods for Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas is one of those games that you could play for decades and never run out of things to see, thanks to its wildly passionate modding community—recently given a second (third?) wind thanks to the Fallout TV show's trip to the strip. With tens of thousands of Fallout: New Vegas mods to pick from, ranging from minor tweaks to new quests, fully voiced party members and all-encompassing overhauls, it's hard to know where to start.

If you're fresh to New Vegas or just want to get things polished up with minimal effort, we've got a New Vegas guide to getting started. But after that, here's a curated list of suggestions to piece together your own little slice of post-apocalyptic heaven, with only some assembly required.

New Vegas bug fixing mods

Bug fixes and other preliminary steps

Though New Vegas isn't nearly as broken as it was at launch, it's still a crash-happy critter. We'll need to bandage it a little more before it can roam free. Start with New Vegas Anti-Crash and the 4GB Patcher, followed by New Vegas Tick Fix to solve the persistent stuttering issue. Those are the essential ones. You might also like Yukichigai Unofficial Patch, the New Vegas version of the community patch project every Bethesda-published RPG eventually requires—among many other things, it restores the sexy sounds that are supposed to play during those fade-to-black moments.

All these can be installed with either Vortex or Mod Organizer 2, whichever you prefer. You'll also need to enable something called archive validation because New Vegas is just particular that way. In Vortex, it's in the settings menu under workarounds. It's also called BSA redirection if you're having trouble finding it.

If you're planning anything more than a rudimentary mod selection, grab the New Vegas Script Extender to enhance the power of subsequent mods, and the JIP LN NVSE Plugin for more engine-level bug fixes and tweaks, and so you can use the console commands without disabling achievements. Now, finally, the actual mods.

New Vegas quality of life mods

Just Vanilla Sprint

Download from: Nexus Mods

Though you'll also want a way of going faster than a jog as well. Just Vanilla Sprint adds a Skyrim-style sprint that drains your action points, complete with balled fists flailing and an out-of-breath sigh the second you stop. You'll need to install the kNVSE Animation Plugin first and if you don't already have the JIP LN NVSE Plugin you'll need that too.

Convenient Fast Travel Markers

Download from: Nexus Mods

New Vegas has a lot of quests that send you back and forth between a couple of NPCs, like Joana at Gomorrah and her boyfriend Carlitos, over and over again. This mod adds more fast-travel markers to make those chat quests painless, as well as making it easier to return directly to your pad at the Lucky 38 after you've unlocked that, or the Kings' hangout while you're doing that questline, or wherever else you need to go in Nevada that Obsidian thought you'd be happy to reach by slowly jogging there from somewhere nearby.

Radio Free Wasteland Lives

Download from: Nexus Mods

There are great tunes on New Vegas’ radio waves, but they have a tendency to repeat a tiny subset of what's already a pretty small selection. Johnny Guitar is grand, but nobody needs to hear it 100 times. Plenty of mods offer solutions, and Radio Free Wasteland Lives makes it easy with a mahoosive variety of tunes packaged in appropriate radio stations.

You want to hear some Elvis? Don't tell the Kings, but you can just tune into Hep Cat Radio and there it is. Molerat Radio has country, Radio New Reno is like Radio New Vegas only more so.

To install Radio Free Wasteland, grab the master file with your preferred mod manager, then download each of the stations and unpack them into your New Vegas install directory.

The original Radio Free Wasteland is no longer on Nexus Mods, but this refreshed version seems to contain most of what we loved in the original release, minus the spiritual vibes of Wescott Radio. They will be missed.

NMC's Texture Pack

Download from: Nexus Mods

There's a morbid sort of beauty in a decaying landscape, and NMC's Texture Pack makes New Vegas even more bleakly attractive. Everything from roads, trees, buildings, vehicles, and other objects have been retextured (sky, water, characters, and weapons are untouched). More detail usually means a performance hit, but there are three different levels of quality to choose from if you have issues running the biggest textures.

MTUI

Download from: Nexus mods

Play enough FNV and your mouse's scroll wheel will probably wear out and fall off. The interface was designed for console users sitting far from their screens, so the game's fonts are far too big and the display doesn't make the most of your PC monitor's real estate. MTUI fixes this by fitting much more text on your screen, letting you see more and scroll less.

Populated Casinos

Download from: Nexus mods

Remember the first time you reached New Vegas? Striding excitedly into a casino, turning in your weapons (except perhaps your holdouts), stepping onto the gaming floor, and feasting your eyes on... two dead-eyed NPCs standing near some slot machines. A big letdown of New Vegas was that the casinos felt vacant and dull.

Populated Casinos turns those casinos into more interesting places to visit. Gaming tables are crowded with gamblers, there are people strolling around and chatting, and there's a bigger staff on hand. Vegas finally has some of the liveliness it was lacking.

New Vegas NPC and follower mods

Doppler

Download from: Nexus Mods

There is no such thing as having too many dogs. Especially when your latest four-legged friend is an adorable (and customizable) robo-pup with an optional Disco Mode. In addition to all the good things that come with having a pet that doesn't need to be fed or watered, Doppler will regularly bring you a steady haul of scrap metal, usable for a variety of crafting endeavours. As with any good companion mod, Doppler has a quest to follow that should take upwards of an hour and provide this very good dog with some very good upgrades.

Brave New World

Download from: Nexus Mods

Sick of hearing the same voice actor for almost every named character in the NCR, and plenty more besides? Brave New World adds vocal variety with pro-sounding new voices for 145 characters, from Andy Scabb to The Lonesome Drifter. I wish there was a version of this mod for every Bethesda-published RPG. Brave New World comes in two flavors—one just replaces voices, while the other also gives these characters new faces that suit their personality and look a little slicker. To enhance even more faces in the Wasteland there's New Vegas Redesigned 2, which is compatible with Brave New World.

Cargobots

Download from: Nexus mods

Inspired by Fallout 76's flying loot-crates, this is a fully voiced (proudly produced without AI, according to the mod description page, too) ongoing sidequest to help the Followers Of The Apocalypse faction gain control of the one and only delivery relay station in the Mojave. In addition to providing several encounters with these item-stuffed mechanical marvels out in the wild, you can also unlock the MULE - a mechanized, mobile storage crate that can be called to anywhere with a clear sky. Handy AND lore-friendly!

Unlimited Followers Everywhere

Download from: Nexus Mods

To further the personal questlines of various companions you need to bring them with you as you travel. But you can only have two at a time, and even then only if the second one is ED-E or Rex. To make it easier to actually get to the bottom of Boone's whole deal while also triggering Veronica's various conversations, use Unlimited Followers Everywhere. It even lets you bring your followers with you into the DLC.

Hope Lies

Download from: Nexus Mods

f you want a companion whose personal quest is short and sweet, Hope is exactly that. You can find her camping near Goodsprings Source, help her track down a mysterious rad-reducing orchid (start at the Goodsprings saloon), and then have her at your back in future adventures. She's fully voiced and sounds professional too.

New Vegas quest and overhaul mods

Stealthtenza

Download from: Nexus Mods

A recent release, adding an hours-long new quest arc (complete with full voice acting and new music) that'll lead you on a hunt for a highly contested east-meets-west technological marvel: A customized stealth armor suit with an incredibly stylish cowboy theme. Who can say no to that dusty wide-brimmed hat, weathered poncho, big revolver and an intimidating glowing triple-eyed visor? Interestingly, there's also alternate versions for those who'd rather just skip to the loot. One that places the stylish new stealth suit in the world to discover, and one that has you start the game with it.

New Vegas Bounties

Download from: Nexus Mods

It's just not a true western without a little bounty hunting, is it? The Bounties mods combine enjoyable writing with excellent custom voice acting while providing a series of increasingly difficult bounty missions that will have you crisscrossing the map to hunt down various outlaws and scoundrels. When you finish rounding up the first set of varmints, you can download New Vegas Bounties 2 and New Vegas Bounties 3. (All the Bounties mods require this additional file to run.)

JSawyer Ultimate Edition

Download from: Nexus Mods

If you find New Vegas a little too easy, this mod based on one by Joshua Sawyer (the actual director of the game) is here to help, and that help is gonna hurt. This massive series of tweaks means you'll gain less experience from combat, you'll level far more slowly, you'll be able to carry less, and you'll be far more vulnerable to damage. Eating, drinking, and resting are now a top priority, and ammo and stimpacks—formerly lighter than air—will now weigh you down. There are dozens of changes for a more challenging experience, making FNV a true struggle for survival, just as it was originally envisioned.

Tale of Two Wastelands

Download from: Mod Pub

Tale of Two Wastelands combines Fallout 3 and New Vegas into a single game, letting you travel back and forth between the two settings and experience Fallout 3 with New Vegas mechanics. Unfortunately it's incompatible with some other mods, so if you want to combo the two you may have to do without certain other improvements.