Honest Hearts is the second add-on for Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks.
Narration
But then the Legion appeared in Arizona. I reckon you know all about them. Turns out Caesar's first war chief, the Malpais Legate, was a New Canaanite. Joshua Graham. Legend goes that Graham was the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the whole damned Legion. The New Canaanites wouldn't talk about him. They were ashamed. Guess I can't blame 'em.
Well at Hoover Dam, the Malpais Legate finally met his match. Hanlon and Oliver kicked his New Canaanite butt right back over the river. Caesar had to make an example for the others, to show them that even at the highest level, failure wouldn't be tolerated. He had Graham covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. People say he didn't even scream on the way down. Not long after, some of the slaves and tribals started to talk. Said Graham wasn't dead. Shouldn't have been any surprise.
Synopsis
After the First Battle of Hoover Dam, Caesar sent Ulysses to the Great Salt Lake to rally the White Legs to destroy New Canaan. With his help, the White Legs found a large supply of weapons. The White Legs then destroyed New Canaan, sending Joshua Graham (also known as "The Burned Man"), and the New Canaanites to Zion Canyon, where the Dead Horses stand with them against Caesar. The Courier then arrives in the Zion Canyon and meets the Burned Man, Joshua Graham, who is surprised that it is a different Courier than Ulysses that came to him, as he had figured Ulysses would come to murder him. This sparks the beginning of Honest Hearts.
Honest Hearts takes you on an expedition to the unspoiled wilderness of Utah's Zion National Park. Things go horribly wrong when your caravan is ambushed by a White Legs raiding band. As you try to find a way back to the Mojave, the Courier becomes embroiled in a war between tribes and a conflict between a New Canaanite missionary and the mysterious Burned Man. The decisions the player character makes will determine the fate of Zion.
Crafting
The Honest Hearts add-on adds new crafting recipes to the game that make use of the Survival skill. Unlike recipes added by the previous add-on Dead Money, most recipes added by Honest Hearts do not require add-on-specific items or perks. Most recipes are available from the start of the game, provided the player has the necessary skill level and ingredients.
Notable new recipes include a method of turning one Fission Battery and 5 Drained Small Energy Cells into 25 Energy Cells, as well as being able to make homebrewed Nuka-Cola and homebrewed Sunset Sarsaparilla at a Campfire using the appropriate ingredients (Nevada agave fruit and barrel cactus fruit for the Nuka-Cola, and Nevada agave fruit together with a Xander Root for the Sunset Sarsaparilla).
There are four new gecko-based armor types that may be crafted. They require Tanned Green Gecko Hides. Green Gecko Hides are only available in Zion. Honest Hearts also adds the most effective poison resistance chem in the game with Blood Shield, which may be crafted with components available in the Mojave Wasteland and very commonly available in Zion Canyon.
The add-on also introduces two new ways of crafting Scrap Metal. You can create 1 scrap metal at a Workbench by either combining a metal cooking pan, metal cooking pot, and pot, or by combining a Butter Knife, Metal Spoon, fork, and Tin Plate. The recipes are listed in the crafting menu as "Cookery-to-metal" and "Meals-to-metal", respectively.
Characters
Creatures
Factions
Items
Ammunition
Apparel
- Chalk's Headdress
- Daniel's hat
- Daniel's Outfit
- Dead Horses stalker armor
- Desert Ranger Combat Armor
- Desert Ranger Combat Helmet
- Gecko-Backed Leather Armor
- Gecko-Backed Leather Armor, Reinforced
- Gecko-Backed Metal Armor
- Gecko-Backed Metal Armor, Reinforced
- Joshua Graham's Armor
- Park ranger hat
- Salt-Upon-Wounds' helmet
- Sorrows adorned outfit
- Sorrows outfit
- White Legs Hide Armor
- White Legs Outfit
Consumables
Weapons
- .45 Auto Pistol
- .45 Auto Submachine Gun
- A Light Shining in Darkness
- Bug Spray
- Compliance Regulator
- Fire Bomb
- Follows-Chalk's .45 Auto Pistol
- Follows-Chalk's War Club
- Joshua's Pistol Whippin' .45
- Salt-Upon-Wounds' Power Fist
- She's Embrace
- Survivalist's Rifle
- Tomahawk
- War Club
- Waking Cloud's Yao Guai Gauntlet
- Yao Guai Gauntlet
Weapon mods
Other items
World objects
Locations
| Image | Name | Cell Name |
|---|---|---|
|
Angel Cave | NVDLC02SecACave (exterior) NVDLC02EasternVirginAngelCave (interior) |
|
Ant Burrow | NVDLC02SecABurrow |
|
Bighorn Bluff | NVDLC02SecBBluf |
|
Burial Mounds | NVDLC02SecBMounds |
|
Caterpillar's Mound | NVDLC02SecCMound |
|
Clear Water Docks | NVDLC02SecCWDocks |
|
Court Fork Overlook | NVDLC02SecCFOverlook |
|
Crashed Scout Bus | NVDLC02SecCSBus |
|
Crossroad Cavern | NVDLC02TheNarrows (exterior) NVDLC02NarrowsTunnel (int.) |
|
Cueva Guarache | NVDLC02SecCGuarache (exterior) NVDLC02ZionSporeCave (interior) |
|
Dagger's Point | NVDLC02SecDPoint |
|
Dead Horses Camp | NVDLC02DeadHorsesCamp |
|
East Fork Bridge | NVDLC02SecNFBridge |
|
Eastern Virgin | NVDLC02EasternVirgin |
|
Fallen Rock Cave | NVDLC02EasternVirginSurvivalistCave (interior) |
|
Ghost Den | Wilderness (3,4) |
|
Glass Chime Cave | NVDLC02TheNarrows (exterior) NVDLC02NarrowsWhiteLegs (int.) |
|
Half Mouse Cave | NVDLC02TheNarrows (exterior) NVDLC02NarrowsSorrows (int.) |
|
Morning Glory Cave | NVDLC02SecMGCave (exterior) NVDLC02ZionSCaveW (interior) |
|
North Fork Bridge | NVDLC02SecEFBridge |
|
North Fork Campground | NVDLC02SecNFBridge |
|
Northern Passage | NorthernPassage (exterior) NorthernPassageINT (interior) |
|
Old Rockville Bridge | NVDLC02SecORBridge |
|
Patriarchs' Campground | NVDLC02SecPCamp |
|
Pine Creek Tunnel | NVDLC02PineCreek |
|
Ranger Substation Eagle | NVDLC02SecRSEagle |
|
Ranger Substation Osprey | NVDLC02SecRSOsprey |
|
Ranger Substation Peregrine | NVDLC02SecRSPeregrine |
|
Red Rapids Docks | NVDLC02SecRRDocks |
|
Route 9 | |
|
Sorrows Camp | NVDLC02TheNarrows |
|
Sorrows Fork Campground | NVDLC02SecSFCamp |
|
Southern Passage | NVDLC02SouthernPassage |
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Stalkers' Camp | NVDLC02SecCRNegra |
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Stone Bones Cave | NVDLC02TheNarrows (exterior) NVDLC02Survivalist01 (interior) |
|
Sun Sentinels | NVDLC02SecSSentinels |
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Survivalist's Cache | Wilderness (-1,-3) |
|
Sweet Flower Cave | NVDLC02TheNarrows (exterior) NVDLC02NarrowsAbandoned (int) |
|
The Aerie | NVDLC02SecTAerie |
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The Bend Bridge | NVDLC02SecTBBridge |
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The Narrows | NVDLC02TheNarrows |
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The Red Gate | NVDLC02SecRRDocks (closest) |
|
The Spine | Wilderness (0,-7) |
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Three Marys | NVDLC02ThreeMarys (exterior) NVDLC023MarysCave (interior) NVDLC02ThreeMarysMassacre NVDLC02ThreeMarysPool |
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Two Skies Cave | NVDLC02SecTSkies (exterior) NVDLC02ZionSCaveS (interior) |
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Vault 22 Dwellers' Guard Camp | NVDLC02SecV22DOCamp |
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Virgin Fork Campground | NVDLC02SecVFCamp |
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Virgin River | NVDLC02SecVRiver |
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White Bird's Cave | NVDLC02TheNarrows (exterior) NVDLC02NarrowsWhiteBird (int.) |
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Wind Wall Docks | NVDLC02SecWWDocks |
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Yao Guai Cave | NVDLC02SecYCave (exterior) NVDLC02ZionYaoGuaiCave (int.) |
|
Zion Canyon | |
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Zion Fishing Lodge | NVDLC02SecZFLodge (exterior) NVDLC02ZionLodge (interior) |
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Zion General Store | NVDLC02SecZGStore (exterior) NVDLC02ZionStore (interior) |
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Zion Ranger Station | NVDLC02SecZRStation (exterior) NVDLC02ZionStation (interior) |
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Zion Valley Welcome Booth | NVDLC02SecZWBooth |
Quests
The XP that is rewarded for quests is variable depending upon your level when the quests are completed. The total XP split between the main storyline quests is approximately 3000 XP at levels 1-4 and 22000 XP at levels 45–50, the secondary quest XP ranges from 75 XP per quest to 550 XP per quest.
Perks
Regular perks
| Name | Level req | Other requirements | Ranks | Benefit | Form ID |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grunt | 8 | Guns 45, Explosives 20 | 1 | 25% more damage with 9mm Pistols and SMGs, .45 Pistols and SMGs, Service Rifles, Assault and Marksman Carbines, Light Machine Guns, Frag Grenades, Grenade Rifles and Launchers and Combat Knives. | xx00F677 |
| Home on the Range | 8 | Survival 70 | 1 | Whenever you interact with a Campfire, you have the option of sleeping, with all the benefits that sleep brings. | xx00B2F3 |
| Sneering Imperialist | 8 | 1 | +15% Damage and +25% accuracy in V.A.T.S. to various tribal and raider characters. | xx00F67B | |
| Tribal Wisdom | 8 | Survival 70 | 1 | -50% limb damage from animals, mutated animals, and mutated insects, +25% to Poison Resistance, ability to eat mutated insects in sneak mode. | xx00F679 |
| Fight the Power! | 10 | 1 | +2 Damage Threshold and +5% Critical Chance against anyone wearing NCR, Legion or Brotherhood of Steel armor. | xx00F67C | |
| Eye for Eye | 20 | 1 | For each crippled limb you have, you do an additional 10% damage. | xx00B2F4 |
Companion perks
| Name | Follower | Benefit | Form ID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quiet As The Waters | Waking Cloud in your party. | White Legs' Perception is effectively decreased by 3. | xx00B2F7 |
| The Way of the Canaanite | Joshua Graham in your party. | Decrease in spread and double the Critical Chance for .45 Auto pistols. | xx00B2F5 |
| Well-Stacked Cairns | Follows-Chalk in your party. | Reaching various summits reveals nearby map markers and grants +3 Perception temporarily. | xx00B2F6 |
Achievements/Trophies
Challenges
| Image | Name | Task | Reward | Form ID |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
In a Foreign Land | Scouted the Zion Valley for signs of the White Legs | 100 XP In a Foreign Land Achievement / Trophy |
xx00B2FC |
|
May my Hand Forget its Skill | Evacuate Zion | 100 XP May my Hand Forget its Skill Achievement / Trophy |
xx00B2FE |
|
O Daughter of Babylon | Crush the White Legs | 100 XP O Daughter of Babylon Achievement / Trophy |
xx00B2FD |
|
Restore Our Fortunes | Resupply Daniel and the Sorrows | 100 XP Restore Our Fortunes Achievement / Trophy |
xx00B2FB |
|
Survivalist's Bounty | Discover All of the Survivalist Hidden Caches | 100 XP | xx00B2F9 |
|
When We Remembered Zion | Arrive at Zion | 100 XP When We Remembered Zion Achievement / Trophy |
xx00B2FA |
|
|
Yao Guai Hunter | Kill 10 Yao Guai in Zion Valley | 100 XP | xx00B390 |
Notes
- Honest Hearts is the only DLC that does not have a warning screen before visiting the new area. The only warnings you receive are through dialogue with Jed.
- Installing Honest Hearts will remove the ability to use the campfire during combat. This is due to the implementation of the Home on the Range perk.
- Skill books are only found as random loot in Honest Hearts. See Fallout: New Vegas skill books for details.
- Like Dead Money, you are not allowed to take companions with you into Zion. However, unlike Dead Money, Honest Hearts does not force them out of your party; you must do this yourself if you wish to proceed.
- Honest Hearts, like all add-ons, raises the level cap by 5.
- Equipment is not taken from the player at the beginning of the add-on; however, the maximum weight limit is decreased due to the length of the journey. 100 pounds of equipment can be taken if you have the Strong Back or Pack Rat perks, or have a minimal Survival skill of 50, or pass the Speech check when talking to Jed Masterson, or pass the Speech check of 50 when talking to Ricky. Without these perks/skill levels, you will have a weight limit of 75.
- The player is able to return to Zion after completing the add-on; however, followers still cannot accompany you. They also cannot be left waiting at the northern passage, and instead will return to their home (ED-E back to Primm, etc.). This is due to the 14-day length of the trip to Zion.
- Honest Hearts features weather, adding rain and overcast skies to the game.
- When the add-on is completed, you can purchase the new weapons from the add-on, such as the Tomahawk, the Fire Bomb, the War Club, the Yao Guai Gauntlet, the .45 Auto Pistol, the .45 Auto Submachine Gun and their respective mods, and the ammunition, from shops around the Mojave Wasteland.
- It's important to note that after completion of the add-on, most unique non-player characters will have left Zion.
- If you choose to defeat the White Legs and allow the Dead Horses and Sorrows tribes to remain in Zion, after the main quest is finished, Dead Horses and Sorrows tribe members will still be at their respective camps and will be peaceful to the Courier.
- After the main quest is finished, Dead Horses and Sorrows tribe members can be killed for loot without receiving negative Karma. If you are seen attacking a Dead Horse, the entire tribe becomes permanently hostile.
- As with Dead Money, there are no noticeable repercussions in the Mojave for your actions in Zion. This frees your normally "good" or "bad" character to complete quests in ways they usually wouldn't without affecting the Mojave.
- The only major merchant in Honest Hearts is Joshua Graham; passing a speech check will allow you to purchase medical supplies from Daniel, but his Caps and items are limited.
- Many tribals are well-equipped, you can find some weapons that are rare in the Mojave Wasteland.
- You can take the Animal Friend perk to face fewer hostile creatures.
- None of the vehicles in Zion will explode.
- It is possible to pickpocket any main character, such as Joshua Graham, Daniel, or Follows-Chalk, while they are asleep. However, you cannot pickpocket their unique weapons and apparel.
- Loading Honest Hearts does not change the spore plants or spore carriers in Vault 22; they are still "empty" when searched.
- Tribal apparel brought back to the Mojave from Zion is not considered 'faction' by followers. That is, they will carry/wear it.
- After completing the Honest Hearts main story, you will be unable to start or finish any remaining side quests for the add-on, as most of the main characters will have left Zion.
- There are many skeletal remains strewn about Zion, most likely campers killed by the fallout referenced in Randall Clark's terminal entries.
- The Vault Boy/Girl is mirrored when selecting apparel from this DLC — they look to the right instead of the left.
Behind the scenes
- Honest Hearts was first hinted at via in-game graffiti in the game files, and ZeniMax Media's trademark of the name "Honest Hearts."[Ext 1]
- Joshua Graham and New Canaan were included in design documents for Van Buren.[Doc 1][Doc 2]
- Joshua Sawyer quoted Brigham Young, "Honest hearts produce honest actions," when referencing the add-on.[Dev 1]
- J.E. Sawyer also revealed that the story of Honest Hearts drew inspiration from the Utah War and Mountain Meadows Massacre.[Dev 2]
- Pilot Studio worked on cover art for the add-on.[Ext 2]
- Sawyer commented on the challenges the development team faced with depicting ethnicities of the tribes in Zion within the limitations of the game engine.[Dev 3]
Developer quotes
We do use them to experiment with themes and gameplay elements on a small scale, yes. For example, in Honest Hearts, I wanted to deal with post-apocalyptic religious characters. Religion isn't dealt with very much in video games, or it's only touched on superficially, or it is done through a proxy/fake religion as a joke.
In contrast to Dead Money, where Chris created a number of nasty, vice-driven folks, I wanted Honest Hearts to feature characters primarily motivated (at least ostensibly) by a desire to do good. That is, I wanted the player to be choosing between virtues instead of choosing between vices. This is also (to a lesser extent) different from the core game, where the major factions are all various shades of scumbag and players are often thinking about which group sucks least.
But fundamentally I really wanted to see if people were allergic to religious topics and characters. Even though it's obviously common in films and books, the topic of religion in games often draws a stink eye or immediate concern that someone, somewhere, will be offended. Honest Hearts had a lot of fair criticism for its relatively small scope, but I'm glad that most people either didn't care about the religious content or enjoyed it. I don't think religion needs to be an element of every story or setting, but I'm glad to know that it can be.”— Josh Sawyer Formspring July 25, 2011 answersYes. I’ve said this since Honest Hearts came out, but the tribes in that DLC were not meant to actually “look” ethnically Native American. They were supposed to be descendants of a broad cross-section of Americans of different ethnic backgrounds (including Native American) and European tourists (in my own trips through the American Southwest, I’ve encountered many French, Swiss, Dutch, and German tourists). We had prepared different skin colors to show that breadth, but we found out that when it was combined with the body art (which was intentionally not based on existing NA body art designs), we blew up the texture memory, which was already really limited on the PS3. The solution was to have just one skin tone, a mid-tone, which had the obvious, unfortunate side effect of just making them all look kind of Native American.
I think the naming and speech patterns could use another pass to avoid falling into negative tropes.
I’ve also said before that Daniel was supposed to be Asian, but for whatever weird reason, somehow his data was switched over to Caucasian (which, in that engine, automatically flips a bunch of face and skin data). This was again done to avoid having it be “two white guys saving Native Americans”. But that’s exactly what it looked like in execution.
The core plot of Honest Hearts was based on Lawrence of Arabia and The Mission. I think it cleaves too tightly to the inspirational material in making the outsiders be the main drivers of the native groups’ destinies. As a result, the native groups feel sidelined in importance/voice.
Finally, I think involving Native American consultants, especially from the American SW, at some stage would have been a good idea.
I take responsibility for the bad representation in HH. I think we did a better job in Deadfire because we did ask Asian devs within the studio to look at the Huana and Rauatai characters and their representation, but we should have also hired some Māori consultants specifically to look at the Huana. The Huana aren’t really Māori (just like the Rauatai aren’t really Japanese), but even a fictional culture that’s only “inspired by” a mix of real world cultures can still get into uncomfortable or outright bad territory.
A few Pacific Islanders have contacted me to tell me that they appreciate that Deadfire deals with PI-type cultures and colonial themes. I’m genuinely glad for that, but we could have very easily done something incredibly shitty through pure ignorance. It never hurts to ask ahead of time.”— J.E. Sawyer on TumblrLawrence of Arabia was another inspiration for Honest Hearts because it's another example of a colonizer stepping in and trying to "help", but a difference between LoA and The Mission is that LoA has Sherif Ali (played by Omar Sharif) as a full participant in / objector to what's happening. The Mission and Mississippi Burning and, unfortunately, Honest Hearts all feature a pair of outsiders wrestling with moral quandaries to figure out what to do while the locals go, "Hmm, if you say so," quietly in the background.
Even the pidgin languages the tribes speak in Honest Hearts were just an attempt to keep costs down. All of the DLCs feature very few speaking characters because Fallout games have localized text and VO. That includes background characters and their reactive barks, so we made pidgin languages for the tribes so they wouldn't need to be re-recorded. Of course, the tribes were also supposed to be multi-ethnic, so you'd see white Dead Horses, black Dead Horses, etc. And again, Daniel was supposed to be Asian. It was incredibly frustrating to get halfway through production only to discover that making ethnic variants for every tribe would completely blow the already limited in-game memory limit. It wasn't a problem of "Ah, this will take more work," but, "The game will crash as soon as this area loads."
And it was white-hot inferno rage when I saw that the shipped version of Daniel had been set to Caucasian. I honestly don't know how or why it happened. Sometimes devs accidentally change data when editing something else and don't even realize they've changed something. For all I know it could have been me. In any case, the confluence of changes and omissions just resulted in it looking pretty bad.”— J.E. Sawyer on somethingawfulBugs
Gallery
White Legs tribal
The Eastern Virgin entrance
Some tribal paintings on a canyon wall
A painting of the Burned Man in Zion
Steam banner
Videos
References
- ↑ Question: "I heard you went to Zion National Park? Did you find any Honest Hearts there?"
Sawyer: "Honest hearts produce honest actions."
Sawyer on Formspring (Archived) - ↑ J.E. Sawyer on Formspring (Archived): "The Utah War/Mountain Meadows Massacre provide some inspiration, but not with analogue parties like you're suggesting."
- ↑ Joshua Sawyer: "How the DLC shipped was not how it was planned. The tribes in Zion are descendants of a mix of North American native people as well as other American citizens and European (of various non-native ethnicities) tourists/campers. This survives in the language of the Dead Horses, for example, who use a large number of German-derived words.
In the first design docs for HH, every tribe was supposed to have members from all of the F3/FNV ethnic groups. However, there was a complicating factor: body art. The various tattoos and body paints we needed to texture the bodies multiplied the number of required textures. They couldn’t simply be layered on (as they can in F4), but were entirely new body textures that dramatically increased the amount of texture memory being used. For that reason, each tribe wound up having only one body texture per sex. This compressed their ethnicities into homogenized blends, with Dead Horses being a darker tan, Sorrows a light tan, and White Legs (under the body paint) fairly pale.
As a minor point, Daniel was specifically supposed to be (and was, in data, for most of development) Asian. I don’t know when, how, or why he was switched to Caucasian, but that’s how he shipped. It’s frustrating, because those changes slot Joshua and Daniel as white guys among (mostly) brown folk when 1) they weren’t supposed to be white guys and 2) the tribes were specifically called out as ethnically and culturally mixed without any real-world analogues.
Regarding the “natives as aesthetic” criticism, the patterns we used for the three tribes’ body art are not based on any current or historical native American body art (AFAIK). There are in-fiction explanations for each tribe’s specific choices. The White Legs initially colored themselves white to blend into the Great Salt Lake (where they are from) and they dread their hair out of reverence for Ulysses. The Sorrows use the river pattern to reflect their suffering and their connection to the Virgin River in Zion. The Dead Horses mark various accomplishments on their skin and decorate their clubs with .45 shells out of their respect for Joshua Graham."
Josh Sawyer on Frog Helms Fan Club (Archived)
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