Fallout: New Vegas’ Legion Is The Series’ Worst Faction

Fallout: New Vegas has plenty of impressive features and factions to join, but the game’s resident villains, Caesar’s Legion, are unfortunately not one of them. New Vegas gives players a lot of freedom to explore the Mojave wasteland and build their character however they wish, as well as plenty of options for how the story plays out. Despite all of the strong writing in the game, however, the Legion consistently falls short.

Caesar’s Legion is one of the factions in Fallout: New Vegas as well as the main antagonists. Despite their role as the game’s villains, the player has the option to side with them, and they even have their own unique questlines to follow. However, apart from a handful of missions and a making Legion-occupied areas easier to traverse, there is essentially no reason to join them. While the rest of Fallout: New Vegas‘ factions rank among the best in the series, the Legion sadly isn’t one of them.

The Legion’s main problem lies in its immense unlikability. The player’s most likely first interaction with the Legion comes in the form of their spymaster gloating about how they had slaughtered a city, and they manage to become even less likable as time goes on. The Legion’s development only comes in terms of introducing new atrocities that they have committed. Random Legion members encountered in the world either insult the player, threaten them, or attempt to kill them. They are a faction of murderous slavers run by a narcissist, and they don’t display any semblance of redeeming qualities, simply being some of the flattest villains in the series. In comparison, Fallout 4‘s four joinable factions are mostly morally grey, and even the villainous Institute has some legitimate arguments for joining. The Legion has nothing of the sort.

Fallout: New Vegas – Caesar’s Legion Is Bad For Everyone

Caesar’s Legion is one of the four factions that the player can join in order to influence the ending of Fallout: New Vegas, and they are far and away the worst. Choosing the Legion route locks almost every companion and settlement into a bad ending no matter what the player’s karma is. There is a significant lack of personal benefits for the player in joining the Legion as well, with the only real upside being extra supplies in certain locations every few days. While Fallout 3 – Bethesda producer Todd Howard’s favorite Fallout game – had two evil companions in Jericho and Clover, they were optional and had no effect on the story. In New Vegas, siding with the Legion essentially overrides everything, making whatever else the player did in the Mojave pointless.

The companions of Fallout: New Vegas are almost universally popular, and they are also the final reason to avoid siding with the Legion. With the exception of the rather ambivalent Raul, all of the player’s companions despise Caesar’s Legion. In fact, fan-favorite sniper Boone loathes them so much that the Legion will always attack the player on sight if Boone is traveling with them. As a result, siding with the Legion essentially prevents the player from using one of Fallout‘s best companions. This means that choosing the Legion negatively affects gameplay as well as the story.

In the end, there are no real reasons to join Caesar’s Legion unless a player is actively trying to make their character as evil as possible. However, they lack any interesting qualities that would make even that worthwhile. Fallout: New Vegas created a wide and entertaining wasteland, but its villains left a lot to be desired.

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