Caesar’s Legion is one of the main factions inFallout: New Vegas, and one of the best realized factions in the entire franchise. When the game was first announced, few fans could have guessed that it would heavily feature an army of raiders styling themselves on ancient Rome.
Caesar’s Legion crucifies people, forces prisoners into hard labor, wipes out entire towns in life-or-death games of chance, and worships a god-emperor who claims to be the son of Mars. However, the Legion is also one of the most creative factions in the entire series, and one that futureFalloutgames should learn from. With rumors circulating about the potential for a sequel toFallout: New Vegas, here’s what makes Cesar’s Legion so great from a worldbuilding perspective.
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Romans In The Wasteland
When fans find out a newFalloutgame is in the works, the game’s setting is always one of the first pressing questions from the community.Fallout: New Vegasmade a great choice withthe Mojave Wasteland, allowing Obsidian Entertainment to experiment with genres from Westerns to Mafia films throughoutFallout’s post-apocalyptic America.
What makes Caesar’s Legion so special, however, is the developers went out of their way to create a faction which would seem totally out of place in the wasteland. Obsidian then totally integrates the Legion intoNew Vegas' world to make it a believable, if over-the-top, political player. Obviously there was no Roman Empire in the Americas, and the choice undoubtedly sticks out in a franchise so deeply invested in Americana. It’s hard to imagine aFalloutgame set outside of the former United States. When players first seethe Legion inNew Vegas’ opening cinematic, they might be forgiven for initially feeling the faction is out-of-place in its world.
However, as the world reveals itself to the player, the role of Caesar’s Legion becomes clearer.Obsidian Entertainmentingeniously turns the battle over Hoover Dam into a version of Caesar’s famous Crossing the Rubicon: The river of which the forces of Julius Caesar crossed as their point of no return before seizing Rome itself and taking control of the empire. InNew Vegas, Caesar’s men seem alien from the get-go, using an antiquated but accurate Latin pronunciation of their leader’s title, among other phrases. The Legion has a penchant for adorning themselves in animal skins, generally acting like they’ve stepped out of the distant past instead of an apocalyptic future.
The Caesar’s Legion faction’s inclusion risked being a ridiculous addition, and yet theFallout: New Vegasfactionis executed with such stylistic commitment that it quickly becomes intriguing, rather than humorous. One thing is clear – whatever appeal Caesar’s Legion has in a post-apocalyptic world, his men are completely dedicated to him and the mythology he has created around himself.
There’s something nebulous about the Legion. Their main oppositionthe New California Republicis far more understandable, simply modelling itself off of America’s pre-war democracy and military. Ceasar’s Legion feels as much like a reactionary cultural movement as a military one. In fact, Cesar’s Legion draws attention to the fact that most ofNew Vegas’ major players, from the NCR to the Brotherhood of Steel, rely upon appeals to the past despite the terrible destruction it directly led to. Ceasar’s Legion simply takes that mindset to its logical conclusion.
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Render Unto Caesar
FutureFalloutgames need to learn from the creativity and commitment Obsidian showed off when designing the Legion. The regionalfactions ofFallout 4like the Minutemen may be connected to Boston’s local culture, but end up far less interesting than the Legion overall. There’s no mystery as to what the Minutemen are doing in the Commonwealth, or what the developers were thinking of when they decided to include the faction in the game. In contrast, the initially baffling presence of Caesar’s Legion makes a huge contribution toNew Vegas’ worldbuilding by radically subverting expectations, and not wavering despite the risk of seeming silly.
Caesar’s Legion may draw upon the most ancient past more than any ofFallout’s major factions, but it’s also one of the few factions to show howFallout’s world has changed afterthe Great War of 2077. Ceasar’s Legion draws upon Roman aesthetics but has none of the governmental institutions, instead relying on assimilating other tribes and a system of mass slavery. While many other factions make appeals to pre-War America, Caesar’s Legion explores just how intensely different a post-apocalyptic culture could be from those that existed before the bombs dropped.
They Came, They Saw, They Conquered
The Legion shows the value of experimentation and risk-taking in worldbuilding, turning away from the obvious parts ofNew Vegas' setting. As a result, the Legion helps transform the Mojave Wasteland from a rough approximation of the Las Vegas area, into a totally unique character in its own right. The Mojave Wasteland doesn’t simply make references to pre-war America, but contains vast unknowns that requires player engagement to understand well. Whether the nextFalloutgame is asequel toFallout: New Vegasor simplyFallout 5, the developers need to take risks with the world’s principal players.
There are areas in which Obsidian’s portrayal of the Legion could have been improved. Developers have talked in the past about the difficulty communicating the advantages of Caesar’s brutal rule due to development time constraints. Only players who are intentionally being evil have much incentive to side with the Legion inthe Second Battle of Hoover Dam. However, the Legion ultimately adds far more color to the Mojave Wasteland than it subtracts.
As an example, if the nextFalloutis set in New Orleans, its factions shouldn’t just be based on Jazz-singing swingers and Mardis Gras-mask wearing elites. If the next game is set in the Pacific Northwest, its factions shouldn’t just be Bigfoot hunters and mountain men. The next game can’t just rely on a caricature of its setting if it wants its world to feel truly worthy of exploration. While the Caesar’s Legion faction inFallout: New Vegashas a simplistic design, its unknown power and alien culture adds a stranger-than-fiction feel that’s helped keep the game a fan-favorite, more than a decade after its release.
Fallout: New Vegasis available now on PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.
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