Dead Money

"You've heard of the Sierra Madre Casino. We all have, the legend, the curses. Foolishness about it lying in the middle of the City of the Dead, buried beneath a blood-red cloud. A bright, shining monument luring treasure hunters to their doom."

- Father Elijah

 is the first add-on for Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks.

Release
A timed exclusive, Dead Money was released on December 21, 2010 for Xbox 360, and was later released for PC and Playstation 3 on February 22, 2011.

Plot
Dead Money is set in the Sierra Madre, an opulent and extravagant resort that was to be the greatest casino in the west, except that it never opened. Bombs fell before the gala opening, and the Sierra Madre froze in time, its state of the art security system locking the place up tight. Nothing could get in, and none of the guests could escape. The security Holograms then activated and the once glorious event turned into a slaughter. After many years the climate control and air conditioning systems within the facility began to spit strange toxins into the surrounding city, causing a red cloud and haze to form over the area - which proved lethal to anyone who tried to explore the city. Only a mysterious group called the Ghost People survived to call the city home, trapped inside what appeared to be hazmat suits and never speaking to their victims, only capturing them alive and dragging them away to the depths of the city deep within the Cloud.

And so the Sierra Madre faded from memory, only occasionally being seen in posters across the wastes, until it took on mythic ghost story status, a supposed "City of Gold" in the Wasteland where all the treasures of the Old World were rumored to be held. It was kept alive as a late-night saloon story by prospectors who'd claimed to have found maps leading there and were willing to part with the map for a few caps. Or a drink. Or a warm place to sleep.

The Sierra Madre is a mythical place in the wastes, with travelers risking their lives to find it. Only one man truly "found" it and lived. After the fall of HELIOS One, Father Elijah of the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel set out to find new weapons to eradicate the NCR, and in the process he found the Sierra Madre.

Crafting

 * Jar of Cloud residue

World objects

 * Active electric hot plate
 * Ennis's locker
 * Sierra Madre vending machine

Cut Content

 * The Faderator
 * Starlet Wig

Price

 * MS: 800 Points
 * UK: £7.99
 * US: $9.99
 * Europe: €10.99
 * Japan: TBA
 * Australia: $15.99

Behind the scenes

 * Chris Avellone discussed some of the design decisions behind Dead Money
 * The add-on as a whole could be a reference to the 1948 film Treasure of the Sierra Madre, where two people who are down on their luck meet a prospector, and plan to raid the remote mountains in search of gold, dealing with fierce locals and personal greed.

Bugs

 * Dead Money overrides some of the changes that have been made to the grenade launcher in previous patches. With Dead Money installed and nothing else taking up space in your load order, the grenade's base damage is increased to 30, its spread is increased to 1.0, NPCs will still use ammo, and it can still be repaired with miniguns.
 * If the quest ED-E My Love is not completed before beginning the DLC, upon the player's return the quest will have disappeared and ED-E will be hostile.
 * Downloading the DLC from within the game will not register the DLC with the game, even when restarting the game or the console. You need to download it from the Xbox Dashboard and wait for the download to complete, then start the game.
 * Profiles on the same HDD other than the one who bought it won't be able to access the DLC. The game will give them a message about the DLC being corrupt even though it is not. The solution is to sign into the purchaser's profile from the dashboard, then load the game, then switch to your own profile.
 * If you download the DLC and then delete it before reaching level 30, but after receiving the "Dead Money loaded" message, installing it again will reset the level-cap to 30, with no known way to fix it. You'll just have to start a new character, or play as level 30 instead of 35. The Canadian version of the DLC does not seem to work with American disk.
 * Under certain patching conditions, the Abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker will remained locked, despite the download of the DLC.