Why Fallout: New Vegas has to end

Obsidian Entertainment has explained why it won't be possible to continue to play Fallout: New Vegas past the ending of its main storyline.

It's because "major" events in the plot would be impossible or difficult for the developer to reflect in the game world, project director Josh Sawyer told 1UP.

"We put a lot of effort into the ending slides - we know those slides are really popular with people so we want to make sure there's a huge amount of variety and reactivity with that stuff," he said.

"Initially, we talked about trying to support post-game play, but because the changes that can happen at the end of the game are pretty major, this is what it basically came down to: either have the changes feel really major in the end slides and then have them not be very major after the end of the game, or make them really minor and not that impactful."

Senior producer Jason Bergman added to Destructoid: "We tell the full story of every one of your companions through the end of their lives, and it's weird to do all that and then jump back and say, 'OK! Now you can keep going again.'"

The game auto-saves before this concluding sequence, though, so you can always return to the point just before the point of no return to mop up quests or explore the Wasteland.

New Vegas' predecessor Fallout 3 also cut players off at the ending, although the Broken Steel add-on later allowed players to re-enter the Capital Wasteland.

Fallout: New Vegas will be released on 22nd October for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.