Fallout New Vegas DLC Guide: All Six Add-Ons and Recommended Order

Fallout New Vegas shipped with a level cap of 30 and four ways to raise it. Each of the story add-ons adds five levels the moment it is installed, so a Courier with the full set tops out at 50, and each one opens a new region with its own radio signal, its own companions and at least one item you cannot get anywhere else. This Fallout New Vegas DLC guide covers all six add-ons: the four story expansions (Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road) and the two item packs (Gun Runners' Arsenal and Courier's Stash) that arrived a week after the last of them.

The table gives the facts people check before they start: when each add-on came out, the level the game or its guides suggest, what triggers it, what it does to the cap and whether the door stays open behind you. The sections below take each story add-on in turn, with its setting, its hook, its main rewards, what you cannot bring in and where the point of no return sits.

The two figures worth reading closely are the level suggestions for Dead Money and Honest Hearts. Old World Blues and Lonesome Road print their warnings plainly (level 15 and level 25), and the wikis record them. The Dead Money bunker only says that experienced couriers should enter, and the 20 comes from the message guides quote; Honest Hearts is quoted at 10 by guides and forum threads, though one wiki puts it nearer 16. The story add-ons launched at $10 each, the item packs at $4 and $2.

Dead Money

Dead Money takes place at the Sierra Madre, a pre-war casino resort and the Villa around it, guarded by security holograms and clouds of poison. The trigger is a radio station, the Sierra Madre Broadcast, in which Vera Keyes invites you to the grand opening. It leads to an abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker northeast of Nelson and a little southeast of Camp Forlorn Hope. Walking up to the radio in the bunk room releases knockout gas, a message tells you your companions have gone home, and you wake at the Villa fountain.

The hook is a bomb collar. Father Elijah's hologram explains that the collar around your neck goes off if you disobey, and that you have been stripped of every useful weapon, piece of armor and aid item. He hands you the Holorifle, a scoped pump-action energy weapon that wants 50 Energy Weapons and 4 Strength, fires microfusion cells and takes three mods. No other copy exists, so keep it repaired. Your first three quests recruit the crew: Dog and God, Christine Royce and Dean Domino. They are temporary companions and their perks are on the companions page.

Money here is Sierra Madre chips, which are both the currency and the raw material for the vending machines that make food, ammunition, medicine and chems. Holotape codes scattered through the resort teach the machines new recipes, and a machine in Elijah's room in the bunker keeps accepting chips after you are back in the Mojave. The resort is also the richest single address on this site's location lists: the skill books page places a Tumblers Today, a Nikola Tesla and You, a Guns and Bullets and a Big Book of Science inside the casino, vault and executive suites, and the skill magazines page adds eight magazine titles there, with more in the Villa clinic and police station. The crafting page notes that electric hot plates, which cook like a campfire, are commonest in the Sierra Madre.

The prize is the vault under the casino, holding 37 gold bars. Each weighs 35 pounds and is worth a little over 10,500 caps, which is why the heist is a weight problem more than a combat one. The point of no return is the vault terminal: reading Sinclair's Personal Accounts seals the doors and starts the ending, in which you trap Elijah by reaching the elevator before him, fight him after a 75 skill check draws him in, or, with a low enough NCR reputation, leave with him for a non-standard ending. Elijah's Robes are among the loot. Afterwards you appear at the Villa fountain and can explore the Sierra Madre for as long as you like, but the moment you leave it is gone except through PC console commands. Your confiscated gear is returned as you climb out of the bunker.

Order verdict: the traps, the collar and the stripped inventory are why guides put it after Honest Hearts, and its characters reappear in Old World Blues, which is why they put it before that one.

Honest Hearts

Honest Hearts is set in Zion Canyon, home to three tribes, the peaceful Sorrows, the Dead Horses who fight alongside them, and the invading White Legs, and to two New Canaanites: Daniel, the missionary who wants the Sorrows evacuated to the Grand Staircase, and Joshua Graham, who wants them taught to fight. It starts at the Northern Passage, at the foot of Gass Peak north of North Vegas Square, where the rocks that blocked the passage clear once the add-on is installed and Jed Masterson's Happy Trails caravan is waiting.

Jed's conditions are the thing to plan for. You travel alone, so companions are dismissed, and you may carry no more than 75 pounds, raised to 100 if you have Strong Back or Pack Rat, a Survival skill of 50, or pass a Speech check with Jed or a Speech 50 check with Ricky. The trip takes fourteen in-game days each way, and the first crossing must be made with the caravan. The weight limit applies only that first time; after the add-on is complete you can return with as much as you like, though followers still cannot come.

The hook is an ambush: the White Legs hit the caravan on arrival, and Follows-Chalk, a Dead Horses scout in training, finds you and leads you to his camp. He and Waking Cloud, the Sorrows midwife, are the two temporary companions, granting Well-Stacked Cairns and Quiet As The Waters; both are on the companions page. The unique rewards are A Light Shining in Darkness, the Survivalist's Rifle and Joshua Graham's armor, alongside a new .45 Auto pistol and submachine gun, tomahawks, war clubs and gecko-hide armors. The caves also hold the four Workbench Crates the skill books page lists (Angel Cave, Cueva Guarache, Fallen Rock Cave and Stone Bones Cave), the last two shared with the Compliance Regulator and the Desert Ranger combat armor.

The point of no return is the choice of ending quest. Side with Joshua and Crush the White Legs takes you to Three Marys to hunt Salt-Upon-Wounds; a Speech 75 check lets him fight back before Joshua executes him, and Speech 90 spares him. Side with Daniel and Flight from Zion has you collapse Pine Creek Tunnel with C-4; fast travel stops the moment it begins, and the Sorrows and Dead Horses camps are empty afterwards. Either way you leave by the Southern Passage and may come back, and the cap reaches 40.

Order verdict: the lowest level warning of the four, and a story that guides describe as standing apart from the thread running through the other three, so it slots in first without spoiling anything.

Old World Blues

Old World Blues moves to Big MT, the Big Empty, a pre-war research facility run by the Think Tank, the five scientists you face at the end, and Dr. Mobius, who lives apart from them in the Forbidden Zone. The trigger is the Mysterious Broadcast inviting you to the Midnight Science Fiction Feature at the Mojave Drive-in, directly southwest of Nipton. A satellite marked UNITED STATES sits in the middle of the lot; between 11 pm and 3 am it throws a blue eye onto the screen, and activating it takes you to Big MT. The warning recommends level 15 or higher and notes that many enemies scale with you.

The hook is surgical. The Think Tank has removed your brain, heart and spine, and the Brainless perk marks the loss until you recover the brain and choose whether to put it back (doing so swaps Brainless for Big Brained, plus 10 percent Damage Threshold). The wikis list no confiscation and no weight limit on the way in; the one restriction they record is that you cannot return to the Mojave until the main quest is done. The Sink, where you wake, becomes a player home, and Big MT is where you find Christine's COS Silencer Rifle (Guns 75, Strength 6) in the ruined building north of Little Yangtze, Elijah's Advanced LAER, the Sonic Emitter, the Proton Axe, the K9000 Cyberdog Gun and the Stealth Suit Mk II. The X-13 facility that houses the suit also hands out a Chinese Army: Special Ops Training Manual after its tests, on top of the copy on the floor, and the skill magazines page sends you to Dr. 8 in the Think Tank for a Meeting People.

The add-on also adds six traits (Claustrophobia, Early Bird, Hoarder, Hot Blooded, Logan's Loophole and Skilled), listed with their trade-offs on the traits and statistics page. Logan's Loophole is the one to think about: chems last twice as long with no addiction, but your level is capped at 30, which cancels the very thing the DLCs give you.

The finale runs through the Forbidden Zone, where the X-42 Giant Robo-Scorpion guards Mobius, who can be reasoned with (Repair 75, Science 50 or Speech 65) or fought along with his robo-scorpions. Your brain follows with Medicine, Speech or Science checks, and the Think Tank itself can be talked down with Speech 75 or high Medicine or Science, bypassed by finishing the four side quests, or fought. There is no true point of no return: the reward is the Big Mountain Transportalponder!, which moves you between the Think Tank and the Mojave Drive-in indefinitely, so long as you are not in combat, have no active companion, and are not standing in the Sierra Madre, the Divide or Zion. The cap reaches 45.

Order verdict: play it after Dead Money if the story matters to you, because Big MT explains characters Dead Money leaves mysterious; play it earlier if you want the Sink and the transportalponder as a base for the rest of the game.

Lonesome Road

Lonesome Road is set in the Divide, a storm-torn stretch of wreckage and missile silos beyond the Canyon Wreckage, and it is the add-on about the Courier. Ulysses sends a radio message addressed to Courier Six pointing you to the Canyon Wreckage west of Primm, reached by a path running north by northwest from the California Sunset Drive-in. The wreckage clears when the add-on is installed, and graffiti reading You Can Go Home, Courier marks the way. The warning says level 25 or higher, and companions cannot go in with you or come out.

Your companion inside is an ED-E, a duplicate built by the automated Hopeville missile silo from a remote scan of the original eyebot. It grants Enhanced Sensors and Camarader-E, repairs your weapons to 25 percent condition once every 13 hours, and can be improved with five Eyebot Upgrade Circuit Boards, all five of which earn the ED-Ecated achievement. It cannot leave the Divide. Its entry sits with the others on the companions page.

The unique rewards are built for a high-level character: Red Glare, a prototype rocket launcher needing 100 Explosives and 6 Strength, carried by a Marked Men hunter atop the Marked Men Camp building and left again in a footlocker at the Canyon Wreckage once you finish; the Blade of the West; the Arc Welder; and Ulysses' Duster and Mask beside a Courier Duster of your own. A Laser Detonator lets you destroy the 30 warheads scattered through the Divide, and detonating all of them earns Warhead Hunter. The books page files a Guns and Bullets in the Hopeville armory, a Grognak the Barbarian in the women's barracks and a Chinese Army manual hidden behind a Sunstone Tower bookshelf that needs explosives to reach, and the magazines page adds titles in the silo bunker and base headquarters.

The end comes at Ulysses' Temple. Once Ulysses is dealt with, the final quest, The Apocalypse, gives you the missiles: cancel the launch (which fails The Apocalypse and completes The End instead), fire on the Long 15, fire on Dry Wells, or fire on both. Hitting Legion land earns NCR fame and Legion infamy, hitting the NCR does the reverse, and both together cost you with both factions; each strike opens the struck site as a new location, and you can watch the detonation on the horizon when you walk back into the Mojave. The reward on top is a point to any SPECIAL stat. You can leave and return to the Divide at any time, and the cap reaches 50.

Order verdict: last. It carries the highest level warning of the four, the wikis record no requirement to have finished the others, and the Games Finder guide and the Steam threads on the question treat it as the finale.

Gun Runners' Arsenal and Courier's Stash

Both item packs released on September 27, 2011, a week after Lonesome Road, and neither has a quest, a location or a level suggestion. Gun Runners' Arsenal ($3.99, or 320 Microsoft Points) adds new weapons, weapon mods and ammunition types to the stock of existing merchants such as the Gun Runners' Vendortron, along with 25 challenges rated from one to three stars and five achievements. The named uniques include the Sprtel-Wood 9700 Gatling laser, the Bozar, the Medicine Stick brush gun, Paciencia, the Esther Fat Man, Two-Step Goodbye, the Katana, the Nuka-Breaker, Li'l Devil, Cleansing Flame, Gehenna and Embrace of the Mantis King!. Because they are bought rather than found, the vendors on the doctors and vendors page are where to look.

Courier's Stash ($1.99 on consoles, $0.99 on PC) unlocks the four pre-order packs for everyone and drops their contents straight into your inventory, on old saves as well as new ones. The Caravan Pack gives Lightweight Leather Armor, a Sturdy Caravan Shotgun with 40 20-gauge rounds, four Weapon Repair Kits and Binoculars; the Classic Pack an Armored Vault 13 Jumpsuit, a Weathered 10mm Pistol with 50 rounds, the Vault 13 Canteen and five Stimpaks; the Mercenary Pack Lightweight Metal Armor, a Mercenary's Grenade Rifle with 20 40mm grenades, three Super Stimpaks and three Doctor's Bags; and the Tribal Pack Tribal Raiding Armor, a Broad Machete, five Bleak Venoms and ten Throwing Spears. The value is early: these are starter items, and a grenade rifle and a canteen matter far more in Goodsprings than they will by the time you reach the Strip.

The Ultimate Edition

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition released on February 7, 2012 in North America and February 10, 2012 in Europe on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, bundling the base game with all six add-ons. Its practical effect is that the level cap is 50 from your first hour, every radio signal is live, the Northern Passage and Canyon Wreckage are already open, and the Courier's Stash gear is already in your inventory. If you own this edition, the sections above describe content you already have.

Which order to play them

Release order is Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road. Sorted by level warning it becomes Honest Hearts (10), Old World Blues (15), Dead Money (20), Lonesome Road (25). The order the Games Finder guide recommends is Honest Hearts, then Dead Money, then Old World Blues, then Lonesome Road: it calls Honest Hearts the easiest and says its story stands alone, puts Dead Money before Old World Blues because Big MT explains people the Sierra Madre keeps mysterious, and calls Lonesome Road the toughest and the capstone. Nothing forces any of this; no story add-on requires another, and the transportalponder refuses to fire from the Sierra Madre, Zion or the Divide, so each region is its own trip. Whichever you pick first, level to it, and treat the Dead Money door as the one you cannot walk back through.