Fallout New Vegas Walkthrough: The Main Quest on All Four Routes

The main quest of Fallout New Vegas is a straight line for its first third and a fork for the rest. Every Courier walks the same road from Goodsprings to The Tops to find the man who shot them; after that, the Platinum Chip goes to one of four masters, and each choice is its own chain of quests ending in the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. This Fallout New Vegas walkthrough follows the shared opening step by step, then lays out the Mr. House, New California Republic, Caesar's Legion and independent routes with what each quest asks, where it sends you and the skill checks that shorten it.

Quest structure and checks are taken from the Independent Fallout Wiki's quest pages. The Courier's sheet, and what to put on it before any of this starts, is covered by our builds page; the people you can bring along are on our companions page; and the four expansions, which slot in anywhere before the dam, are on our DLC guide.

Part 1: Goodsprings to Primm

Ain't That a Kick in the Head is character creation in Doc Mitchell's house, where your SPECIAL, tag skills and traits are set, all of which ourattributes and skills page and traits page explain. Sunny Smiles then runs Back in the Saddle, the combat tutorial, and By a Campfire on the Trail, the last of the tutorial quests. One Goodsprings errand has a deadline: the saloon owner Trudy can only give you her radio repair job if you talk to her before finishing They Went That-a-Way, so do it now if you want it.

They Went That-a-Way begins when you leave. Head southeast to Primm, where the Vikki and Vance casino has become a refuge and the Bison Steve hotel across the road is held by escaped convicts. Deputy Beagle is tied up inside the hotel, and his journal holds the trail. There are four ways to get it: free him and pass a Speech check of 25 to keep him at your side while you clear the hotel, at which point handing him a gun opens his inventory and the journal is yours; threaten him with Speech 40 for the information outright; pickpocket the journal, which costs karma; or kill him and take it. Johnson Nash in the casino offers the rescue as the side quest My Kind of Town, and finishing that quest before asking Beagle about Benny removes the dialogue, though the pickpocket route still works.

Part 2: Nipton, Novac and Boulder City

The journal points south and then east to Nipton, which the Legion has just finished with. Oliver Swanick runs past celebrating a lottery win, Boxcars in the general store tells you the Legion marched its hostages toward Novac and offers the optional quest Booted, and Vulpes Inculta waits at the town hall to explain what happened and hand you Cold, Cold Heart. None of it is required. One warning: if you come back later with Boone, he opens fire on the Legion on sight and Vulpes turns hostile.

Vipers ambush the road into Novac. Manny Vargas, the sniper on duty by day in the mouth of the dinosaur, knows where the Khans went and will not say until you have cleared the ghouls out of the REPCONN test site for him, which is the side quest Come Fly With Me. There are three ways round that condition: the Confirmed Bachelor perk unlocks a line that gets the answer for free, his motel room terminal holds a message titled Khan Hospitality that names Boulder City, and the holotape can be pickpocketed or looted. Novac is also where Craig Boone stands the night watch, and his recruitment quest One for My Baby is the reason to stop here; the details are on our companions page.

Boulder City is a standoff. The Great Khans who escorted Benny, led by Jessup, are holding NCR hostages in the ruins while Lieutenant Monroe's troopers wait outside, and the side quest Boulder City Showdown resolves it. Talk the Khans down with Speech checks and Jessup hands over Benny's engraved cigarette lighter and the Khans think better of you; appeal to Monroe instead and he gives you the lighter and the NCR does; or fight, and take the lighter from Jessup's body. Speaking to Jessup ends They Went That-a-Way for 1,000 XP and an achievement. The whole trail can be skipped by walking to the Strip and finding Benny cold, but the lighter and the Khan note are the evidence that makes the next quest cheap.

Part 3: Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

The Strip's gate checks that you are carrying 2,000 caps without taking them; failing that, Ralph at Mick and Ralph's forges a passport for 500 caps (375 with Barter 50) once a Speech check of 50 persuades him, a Science skill of 80 hacks the gate Securitron, and the Camp McCarran monorail or the reward for The King's G.I. Blues gets round the gate entirely. Once inside, The Tops takes your weapons at the door. Swank at the front desk is the way past both problems. He wants proof that Benny has been acting behind the Chairmen's backs, and he counts it in pieces: the distinctive cigarette butt from Goodsprings, the lighter, the Khan Hospitality note and knowledge of Yes Man each count as one, and Speech checks at 15, 30 and 45 stand in for the ones you lack. Two pieces get your weapons back and keep the Chairmen neutral; three send Benny up to his suite alone and put the suite key in your pocket.

Whatever you choose, the suite has a safe at Lockpick 50 with a 10mm submachine gun, a grenade rifle and a power fist inside, and it has Yes Man, the Securitron Benny rebuilt to obey anyone. Yes Man explains the chip and opens the independent route. Swank becomes boss of the Chairmen, and our Benny page covers what becomes of Benny on each path. From here the game splits: The House Always Wins takes the chip to Mr. House, Things That Go Boom starts the NCR line, Render Unto Caesar the Legion's, and Wild Card: Change in Management the independent one. Starting some of these fails the others, so pick before you commit.

Route A: Mr. House (The House Always Wins)

All or Nothing is House's battle. You start on the dam among NCR Rangers fighting Khans and legionaries, enter the third tower on the right and upload House's override chip in the control room; two NCR heavy troopers turn on you when it goes in unless a Speech check of 75 talks them down. The main power plant door is to the southeast, and the switch inside powers the Securitron Mark II army, which levels Fortification Hill and rolls on the Legate's camp. Legate Lanius can be beaten or turned away with Speech 100 or Barter 100, and General Oliver can be killed or made to hand over the dam with Speech, Science or Barter at 100. House arrives in a Mark II to close the game.

Route B: The NCR

Ambassador Crocker at the NCR Embassy opens the line with Things That Go Boom, which is the Boomers' own quest Volare! by another name: fetch the pump from Vault 34 and raise the B-29 from Lake Mead so Nellis will fly for the Republic. Kings' Gambit follows, and it is about Freeside. Crocker wants the fighting between the Kings and NCR squatters stopped, and the choices run from a favor owed by The King after G.I. Blues, to an NCR offer arranged through Colonel Hsu at Camp McCarran that ends with Pacer staging a coup and dying for it, to simply removing Pacer, by framing the Van Graffs with a forged note from Ralph at Speech 50, by spiking his Jet with Psycho at Medicine 60, or with an energy weapon. It pays 1,300 XP and 600 caps, 800 with Barter 60.

For the Republic, Part 2 is Colonel Moore's list at Hoover Dam, and it is most of the route. The Great Khans at Red Rock Canyon are either talked out of the Mojave through Oh My Papa or killed. The Omertas' plot at Gomorrah is uncovered through Liza O'Malley at the embassy and then Cachino, whose journal opens the door at Strength 8 or Barter 55, with Troike (Speech 80, or 70 to plant thermite) and Big Sal (Barter 45 or Speech 53) along the way, or ended by fighting the bosses. Mr. House has to be removed: the penthouse antechamber opens with Science 75, the Lucky 38 VIP keycard from Camp Golf or H&H Tools, or the chip, and in the control room you either disconnect him or kill him, for 200 XP and NCR fame. The Brotherhood is handled by truce if you already stand well with them and McNamara is elder after Still in the Dark, or by stealing the three keycards and starting the bunker's self-destruct, or by killing everyone in it.

You'll Know It When It Happens is the president's visit. Ranger Grant at the dam has you watch for a Legion engineer who is not one, pickpocket the failsafe detonator or find the bomb on the vertibird and defuse it with Repair or Explosives at 50, with Speech 50 getting you onto the landing pad. Eureka! is the battle. General Oliver briefs you, and the objectives run through power plants 04 to 01 clearing the Legion, with a Science 65 terminal in plant 03 and a valve outside letting you flush invaders through the turbines, then across the top of the dam, where a Science 100 check with a detonator drops one Legion group at the checkpoint. Veteran Rangers you meet can be told to snipe, to follow, or to clear the way ahead at Speech 85. At the Legate's camp, Lanius can be argued out of the war with Speech or Barter at 100, talked into a duel at Speech 85, bluffed into retreating through a chain of Speech checks from 60 to 90, or killed. The camp gate blows and Oliver walks in to finish the game.

Route C: Caesar's Legion

Render Unto Caesar starts with the Mark of Caesar, the safe-conduct that lets a Courier the Legion has been hunting walk into The Fort. Caesar's first courtesy is Benny, if he escaped The Tops: you choose how he dies. His first task is the bunker under the weather station, which he wants destroyed; whether you destroy the Securitrons or, unknown to him, upgrade them with the chip, the rumbling underground satisfies him, and the Platinum Chip comes back to you with 500 XP and Legion fame. The rest of the quest is the Legion's version of Moore's list: bring the Boomers and the White Glove Society over, and destroy the Brotherhood of Steel. Freeing Benny at The Fort turns the whole camp hostile and ends the route.

Two shorter quests follow. Et Tumor, Brute? is Caesar's brain tumor, which the Courier can operate on in the autodoc or quietly fail to treat, and his condition going into the battle depends on it. Arizona Killer is the Legion's mirror of the president's visit: instead of stopping the assassin, you are the assassin, with several ways to kill Kimball during his speech at the dam. Veni, Vidi, Vici is then the assault, briefed by Legate Lanius in his tent with Caesar's instruction to come back victorious or not at all. You cross the dam toward the western power plant, with optional objectives to kill NCR snipers on the towers and release Legion reinforcements from the intake tower terminal, and with the Enclave Remnants, the Boomers and the Khans joining in if you earned them. Oliver's compound at the end is force fields, traps and rangers; a Speech check of 100 sends the general away, otherwise you kill him, and Lanius hands you Oliver's uniform as the credits roll.

Route D: Yes Man (Wild Card)

Wild Card: Ace in the Hole is the conversation with Yes Man in Benny's suite. Wild Card: Change in Management is the point of no return. Get into the Lucky 38 penthouse terminal with Science 75, the VIP keycard or the chip; the alarm sets the Securitrons on you until the right-hand terminal's security override stops them, and the left-hand terminal opens the elevator to the control room. There you open House's chamber and either disable him, which leaves him alive and helpless, or sterilize it, and the wiki notes he dies within a year either way. Bring Yes Man from The Tops to the Lucky 38 mainframe for 300 XP, at which point Beware the Wrath of Caesar! and Don't Tread on the Bear! start and the NCR and Legion lines are closed to you.

Wild Card: You and What Army? is the Fort bunker again. Caesar lets you in on the understanding that you will destroy it. In the systems room, up the stairs in the westernmost hallway of the Securitron vault, insert the chip to upgrade the army for 750 XP, or shoot, club or blow up the three reactor modules for 500 XP and a much weaker ending; Caesar takes the noise for destruction either way. Wild Card: Side Bets is the diplomacy: the Boomers (Volare!, or kill Pearl and Loyal, or leave them), the Brotherhood (a truce, the self-destruct, or, if Veronica is with you, simply leaving them alone), the Great Khans (Oh My Papa, or persuade them to leave, or destroy them), the White Glove Society (Beyond the Beef) and the Omertas (back Cachino in How Little We Know, or help the bosses and pay for it on the Strip). Wild Card: Finishing Touches is the El Dorado substation, held by NCR troops who shoot on sight unless you go in disguised: install Yes Man's override module so the Securitrons can be commanded beyond the Strip, for 500 XP and NCR infamy, and, optionally, protect Kimball during his visit and bring in the Followers of the Apocalypse if they idolize you.

No Gods, No Masters is the independent battle. You start at the western end of the dam with a Securitron beside you and the upgraded army in support if you kept it; destroy it earlier and Yes Man spends the fight remarking on how brave that was. The last tower's elevator leads down to the offices, where two NCR heavy troopers with incinerators stand over four cowering legionaries; kill both sides, sneak past, or send the troopers outside with Speech 75. Activate the override terminal, fight or sneak through the halls to the manual switch on the balcony over the east power plant, then cross to the eastern side, where the Boomers' bombers and the Remnants join in if you earned them. In the Legate's camp, Lanius fights or yields to Speech 100 or Barter 100; at the gate, General Oliver and six veteran rangers can be killed or talked into withdrawing, after which Yes Man will, if you ask, throw the general off the dam. Report to Yes Man and New Vegas is yours.

Which Route to Pick

The four routes share most of their errands: three of them send you into the Fort bunker, all four to Nellis and to Hidden Valley, and every one of them ends with Legate Lanius and General Oliver at the dam. What changes is who you are doing it for and which factions survive. On every route Lanius can be talked down at Speech or Barter 100, and on House's route Oliver yields to Speech, Science or Barter at 100 as well. The NCR route carries the most skill checks in this walkthrough; the Legion route has the fewest quests, four against the NCR's five, Yes Man's six and House's nine. Whichever you choose, our weapons page and unique weapons page are where to arm for Hoover Dam, and the four add-ons on our DLC guide each raise the level cap by five before you get there.