Technologies

Before Fallout Season 2, Explore and Learn About New Vegas on Xbox Game Pass Now

Explore the in-game desert for the first — or third — time and get the lowdown on the area and characters before the show airs.

Amazon is gearing up to deliver the second season of the award-winning series Fallout on Dec. 17 on Prime Video. The new season takes us to a place called New Vegas, which makes it a great time to explore — or revisit — that area in the game Fallout: New Vegas on Xbox Game Pass now.

In the trailer for Fallout’s upcoming season, we see Lucy (Ella Purnell), the Ghoul (Walton Goggins) and the trusty Dogmeat traversing the irradiated desert to reach the glitzy town of New Vegas. Lucy continues to search for her father while the Ghoul is likely looking for the cause of the apocalypse, and all roads lead to the roulette wheel in the desert formerly known as Las Vegas. The trailer is filled with characters and set pieces that anyone familiar with the New Vegas game will recognize, and the game can give you some insights into what to expect when the second season airs.

According to CNET’s sister site HowLongtoBeat, you can play the game’s main story and side quests in about 60 hours. So you have plenty of time to play the game on either Xbox Game Pass Premium or Ultimate ($15 and $30 a month, respectively) before the show’s Dec. 17 premiere.

Here’s what to know about Fallout: New Vegas, and some of the lore behind characters and places we’ll see in the show.

Warning: Fallout: New Vegas spoilers ahead.

What happens in Fallout: New Vegas?

In this RPG, you play as a character named the Courier. At the beginning of the game, you’re kidnapped while making a delivery, shot by a man named Benny and left for dead. You survive, and with nothing but a thirst for vengeance, you set out across the desert to find Benny and give him a taste of his own medicine.

Along the way, you will explore different towns, learn about the different desert factions and interact with con artists, like a character named Fantastic who tells you he has a theoretical degree in physics. It’s a wild game, filled with excellent writing and superb set pieces.

Bethesda published the game about 15 years ago, in 2010, so the controls might feel a bit clunky. Character movements might appear robotic, and in some cases, that’s because the character is a robot. But overall, this is still a fun game that gives you a taste of the desert and shows you plenty of places and people you’ll see in the show, like the Lucky 38 and Mr. House.

The Lucky 38 and Mr. House

The Lucky 38 is a casino in New Vegas and the seat of power of Mr. House, who runs the New Vegas Strip. In the game, no one has set foot inside the Lucky 38 in over 200 years, nor have they seen House.

House controls New Vegas and the robots, called securitrons, who enforce order around the area. In the game, you mostly interact with House via a computer screen, but as we see in the trailer, he was a person before the bombs fell.

We see the casino and House (Justin Theroux) in the trailer for the second season during flashbacks, and both seem to be just as important to the upcoming season as they were in the game.

Victor

One of House’s securitrons is named Victor. In the game, he rescues the Courier just outside the community of Good Springs. House sent him to the community, and he reappears later in the game. He is recognizable because he is the only securitron robot with a cowboy face and the only one that speaks with a twang.

We see Victor briefly in the trailer in what appears to be a rundown shack, likely in Good Springs. Because he knows about House, we might see the Ghoul or someone else try to get information about House’s location out of him.

Caesar’s Legion

The Legion is a pretty bad faction in the Wasteland, fashioned after the Roman Empire. It’s a militaristic authoritarian dictatorship whose members are fanatical in their devotion to their leader, Caesar. Legion members wear old sports equipment and carry out brutal attacks on civilians and other factions.

In the game, Caesar’s Legion either enslaves or kills anyone who doesn’t join it, and one in-game community is razed while some of its inhabitants are crucified. If you run into members of Caesar’s Legion in the game, especially early on, you should run the other way.

The trailer shows Lucy being led by a member of the Legion through a Legion camp. It’s not clear if she’s been taken prisoner or if she is making a deal with them, but you can’t really make a deal with the Legion. You just kind of have to accept their terms.

Dinky the T. rex and Novac

Dinky! This giant dino is the mascot for the town of Novac, formerly the Dino-Dee Lite Motel outside of the New Vegas strip. Novac is a small settlement where traders can usually be found, and in the trailer for Fallout’s second season, it looks like a gunfight or ambush happens in this small community. We also see Lucy perched in the sniper’s nest that is Dinky’s mouth. And in the game, you can go up there yourself to meet a possible companion. You can also buy Dinky toys in the game at the gift shop within Dinky, and I hope we see these little guys appear in the show.

Atomic Wrangler Casino

This bar is in a part of New Vegas called Freeside, which is just outside the New Vegas strip. It’s also based on a real liquor store on Las Vegas’s Fremont Street called Atomic Liquors. You can gamble and eventually buy a prostitute here if you complete the right quests, but just like any good Vegas casino, if you win too much money, the establishment will throw you out. And it appears that the Ghoul does indeed get himself thrown out of this establishment by way of a second- or third-story window in the trailer for Fallout’s upcoming season.

Gomorrah

Gomorrah is a casino and brothel in New Vegas run by the Omertas, one of the Three Families — gangs — in the New Vegas strip. The Omertas are very secretive and don’t freely give out information. Their gang also has only one rule — don’t betray the family — so they can be pretty ruthless.

The in-game Gomorrah is also notable for being one of the few ghoul-friendly establishments, but in the trailer, we see the Ghoul getting into some kind of firefight outside of the place. Maybe it’s not as ghoul-friendly as one would hope.

The Tops

This is another casino in New Vegas run by the Chairmen, another one of the Three Families. In the game, their leader is Benny, that rascal who shot the Courier and set the whole game in motion. The casino and Chairmen try to offer an old Hollywood style of luxury to their patrons, but they’re still brutal. And what’s that in the trailer? Another gunfight outside of a gang headquarters? Well, I’ll be.

Deathclaws

We saw a deathclaw skull near the end of the first season of Fallout, and the second season’s trailer brings our characters face-to-face with a living one. These creatures are hulking, bipedal lizards that are one of the most formidable enemies you encounter in the game. They’re fast and can deal and absorb a lot of damage. I highly advise anyone to avoid interacting with these creatures, and it appears Lucy and the Ghoul have a close encounter with one in the upcoming season.

Again, you can explore all these areas and more of New Vegas now on Game Pass Premium and Ultimate before Fallout’s second season premieres on Dec. 17.

For more streaming news, here are the best streaming services and what to know about Prime Video.

Technologies

Anthropic warns investors of AI’s ‘existential risk to humanity’ in IPO prospectus, reports say

Anthropic’s IPO filing dedicates 80 pages to the risks of AI, nearly double the 48 pages it spends discussing its business plans, according to Reuters.

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Technologies

U.S., Iran hold separate mediator talks as Mideast oil exports hit war-time high

Iranian and U.S. officials reportedly met separately with mediators Monday to push for a ceasefire, as Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded to war-time high.

Iranian and U.S. officials reportedly met separately with mediators Monday to push for a ceasefire.

Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February.

An outright export ban by Washington on diesel would keep roughly 1.2 million barrels a day at home, and risks overwhelming Gulf Coast storage, according to Kpler.

The building of the destroyed Shajareh Tayebeh primary school is pictured surrounded by rubble in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province on August 10, 2026. Six months on, a team of AFP journalists obtained rare access to the school which has remained largely in ruins, its collapsed walls and twisted steel now surrounded by portraits of the children killed as Iranian flags flutter above the rubble. Iran says the attack on the school involved two separate US Tomahawk missiles but neither the United States nor Israel has officially claimed responsibility for the strike. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty Images) /

Atta Kenare | Afp | Getty Images

U.S. and Iranian officials have reportedly held separate indirect talks with mediators on Monday, reviving efforts to end seven months of war as Tehran presses for a response to a revised ceasefire framework and Middle East crude exports climb to their highest level since the conflict began.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Qatari mediators in New York, where he remained after the United Nations General Assembly, and reportedly said he expects Washington’s reply by Tuesday. “We talked about ideas and how to find solutions to fulfil Iran’s conditions,” Araghchi said, adding that he planned to return to Tehran once a response arrives. “Whenever the Qataris have a response, they know how to get it to us.”

Iran’s proposal, first presented on the sidelines of last week’s General Assembly, calls for a four- to five-day U.S. timeline to release frozen Iranian funds, lift sanctions on Iranian oil and end the naval blockade of Iranian ports, with nuclear talks beginning within seven days. Tehran has tied any reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to those steps.

President Donald Trump had on Sunday called the plan “unacceptable” and rejected it, telling reporters Iran wants a swift deal because of the economic pressure it is under. Speaking at the White House Monday, Trump said U.S. officials had spoken separately with mediators but gave no further details, adding: “We’re going to win. It’s going to go pretty quickly.”

The diplomatic push comes as physical supply data shows the war’s toll on the oil market easing. Middle Eastern crude exports rebounded this month to around their highest level since the war began in February, Kpler data showed. “Middle East crude exports at just under 80% of pre-conflict levels,” the tracking firm said in a note on Monday.

The Strait of Hormuz itself remains far from normal. Kpler’s real-time tracking showed total clearance through the strait at 10,591 kilobarrels a day on Saturday, against a pre-war baseline of 17,133.

Technologies

Oil prices fall as crude exports recover at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports

Saudi Arabia has restored flows through the pipeline to around 3.5 million barrels per day, according to media reports.

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