Bethesda: Factions in New Vegas won't be so "black and white"

Bethesda's Pete Hines has explained in more detail how factions will work in Fallout: New Vegas.

Speaking with Planet Fallout, Hines said the alignment of the two main factions won't be so "black and white", meaning it will be more of a gray area; plus, there are smaller factions that will come into play as well.

"Without giving too much away, in general you've got two main factions in the game fighting for control over the Mojave wasteland, NCR and Caesar's Legion," he explained. "We've tried to have everything in Fallout: New Vegas not to be so black and white. These are the good guys these are the bad guys, if you join with these guys you are bad, if you join with these guys you are good. It's not quite that cut and dry.

"When you talk to folks, things you are doing may feel a bit more evil or feel more good guy, but you can join either side and help their cause in terms of helping them buy more control of the wasteland.

"There are a lot of smaller factions in the wasteland that maybe neutral in terms of which way they are leaning. And working through some of those factions and how they act, or the quests that you do for them, or how you resolve things related to those smaller factions as well as those larger faction, you're kind of helping chart the course of what is going to happen in the Mojave and who is going to win."

According to Hines, if you join Caesar's Legion and spend the majority of your time killing off the NCR, obviously you're helping Caesar's Legion best the NCR and vice versa should you help out the NCR.

How this affects the wasteland, is if you spend all your time wiping out every NCR you run into, for example, NCR you run into will be "more inclined to attack you as soon as they see you".

"They may send Rangers out, the badass guys that you see on the box cover are the Rangers, those are the elite of the NCR, and they may send those guys out to take you out," offered Hines. "Where you have become such a nuisance that they want to try to get rid of you.

"So the wasteland changes itself like that more than anything else, which is, I'm moving around and trying to get into Helios One. But when I get there the NCR is in control, I spent all this time fighting them I can't just be like 'hey guys how's it going', it is going to make it much more complicated to get into that facility.

"It is more about that and offers more replayability."

Fallout: New Vegas releases on October 19 in the US and October 22 in the UK for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.