South Vegas ruins and New Vegas Steel

Today I continued farther north to explore the real world South Vegas Ruins – Fiends Territory. I always wondered what happened here in game. We learn that only a few bombs fell around Las Vegas, and if none fell here, what made all of these buildings look as if they did? Or perhaps one of the bombs did fall here, as the damage looks akin to Boulder City Ruins as opposed to the vast majority of still standing buildings across the Mojave. Even more so, it reminded me of the town of Rhyolite, California, which I will add pictures of below.

I generally enjoyed dealing with the Fiends here. I had not made them mad in Vault 3 and listening to their banter was funny.

Locations

# 41 – Vault 3
# 43 – New Vegas Steel
# 44 – West pump station
# 40 / 42 / 257 / 321 – South Vegas ruins / entrances

Location Details

# 41 – Vault 3 – This vault is geographically situated in the same real world location as the Arroyo Corporate Center, which is comprised of similar two story industrial and commercial buildings, south off The Strip and Interstate 215.

The in game vault was fun to play through – especially killing Fiends in stealth and having them comment on it, watching the released captives sneak right by Fiends with no issues, and finding boxes upon boxes of pool balls. Delightful.

*vault clocks would keep working maybe?*

# 43 – New Vegas Steel – I believe that the closest in real life approximation is Vegas Forge, which looks quite similar to the in game location, albeit more to the northeast. I am going to try to request a tour of this forge on my next trip. This time, I did not think ahead of time and could not quite figure out how to get into the building.

# 40 / 42 / 257 / 321 – South Vegas ruins / entrances – I grouped all the directional entrances together for continuity. The entire South Vegas Ruins area is fairly vast and had a lot of subtle and unexpected fun therein. I met Queenie, who is a very good girl. I left her in peace after massacring her mean owner.

There was a strange glitch I encountered that made all of the Fiends sort of freeze in place when I shot them, resulting in weird, zombie like art installations. My shell casings froze in mid air, too. It happened to me twice and I can not quite figure out what triggered it – but it was super bizarre and magical.

I remember one time I was trying to elude one of the Fiends and he is chasing me around the ruins, saying over and over again, “When I find you, I will eat your spleen!” and this went on for several minutes. I could not help but laugh like, well that is an oddly specific threat. I tried to get a screenshot of it but could not. Hopefully everyone will hear this someday and it will bring you joy.

And in case any one was wondering, I looped Zapp’s Neon Signs into Freeside entry, only because I think the equivalent in our world is located there, do not worry, I did not forget.

# 44 – West pump station – The closest approximation I have for the pump station on the west side is called Water Well Services, Inc. This company is close in geographical location and the equipment looks very similar. I did not trespass here, though.