New Vegas modder fixes one of those glaring issues you'll never un-see once you notice it: Your pooch pal doesn't have a sneaking animation

Dog Sneak Animations - YouTube

Odds are solid that Fallout: New Vegas is your favourite Fallout. Hell, odds are good that it's your favourite game, period. It shouldn't be, though. I'm sorry to tell you that up until yesterday, Fallout: New Vegas has been unforgivably bad. The dirt-worst.

This is, of course, because up until yesterday New Vegas had absolutely no bespoke sneaking animation for its canine companion Rex. Unlike the game's human companions, whenever the player dropped into a crouchwalk while accompanied by Rex, the daft mutt would simply… remain standing, plodding along behind you like you were on a jolly in the park and not on a stealth mission of immense importance.

No longer. Thanks to a modder named Wombat, Rex's crippling leg-bone issues are a thing of the past. Once you've got Dog Sneak Animations installed, dropping into a crouch (so long as you're out of combat) will have your pooch friend join you, shuffling along the floor flat on his legs like he's sidling up to you to say sorry for eating the sofa cushions.

Spiritual leaders are calling it the thing that might finally unite humanity. It is, frankly, rather adorable, and a great entry in that list of mods that fix things you literally never thought about before, but that become essential as soon as you clap eyes on them.

Ranger crouches with dog. — (Image credit: Bethesda / Wombat)

"It's meant to look funny and cute," says its creator. The people agree that it does: "You just made one of the most soulless looking companions have an amazing personality. Why is this so peak?" asks an ostentatiously zoomer YouTube commenter. "This guy they call Wombat, he might just be the best to ever do it," writes a sage Nexus Mods user.

Wombat has form for these kinds of exquisitely-done animation mods. They've graced our pages before for their comprehensive overhaul for New Vegas' third-person movement animations (it's cooler than it sounds) and for turning power armour into the walking tank it's truly meant to be. They're a modder on a mission. That mission: make New Vegas' animations way cooler 15 years after it came out.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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