Fallout Sonora: Southbound Through the Wastes

Picture this: it's a stormy night, filled to the brim with atmosphere, rain pattering against the windowsill in your bedroom. Your monitor glows as the credits for Fallout 2 splash across the screen. You're learning what happens to Arroyo, San Francisco, Modoc, and the countless lives you influenced along the way. You know this game is going to stick with you forever. The consequences. The trust it places in you to figure things out. The mistakes you made and the stories that came from them.

Fortunately for us, Fallout 2 possesses one of the most dedicated and talented modding communities of all time. For decades, fans have continued building upon the foundation Black Isle created, producing everything from restoration projects to entirely new adventures. Among the most ambitious of these efforts is Nevada Band Studio, a mod collective from Russia that released Fallout: Sonora in 2020. To the world, at least. Well, the world if you happen to read Russian.

When I beat Fallout 2 in mid-2024, I longed for that feeling again, and to be honest, Sonora is the only game that has truly done the original game justice. The experience wasn't perfect, nor was it free of serious friction, but Sonora left an impact on me that permanently changed my opinion of unofficial projects.

If the IP holders won't do it justice, the fans will. Or at least a group of incredibly talented fans who understand the structure, worldbuilding, and atmosphere that made classic Fallout tick.

When I played Sonora, I played a seriously rough, sometimes barely-there AI translation of the game. Thankfully, there's a complete English translation available now, so your experience may be completely different from mine. Despite the rough translation and missing patches, the vibe of a wasteland south of the United States in Mexico was astonishing. It was filled to the brim with new places to explore, travel encounters left entirely up to luck, and random discoveries that would make you stop and question your morality, much like the original games.

For instance, I don't want to completely spoil this game for anyone. It's a masterclass and deserves to be experienced firsthand. However, I can't leave out the one location that has been stuck in my head ever since I finished it.

Santa Ana is a location you'll discover in Sonora, a small town centered around family and faith. When you first arrive, everyone is outside celebrating. Naturally, you start asking questions.

Eventually, you learn that the town believes every year, beneath the church, the Devil comes to collect his dues. In a desperate attempt to stop him, they sacrifice a child. The child is told they're serving a higher purpose, becoming a vessel for God beyond life.

As you're piecing everything together, you discover they're currently in the process of locking a young girl beneath the church to meet her fate.

So you investigate.

When you descend into the basement, you slowly realize this has nothing to do with religion. Santa Ana's "Devil" is a Deathclaw, an Enclave-created nightmare that returns every year because of routine. That's it. Not prophecy. Not divine punishment. Just a monster.

So naturally, you kill it, free the girl, and head back to explain what really happened.

They don't believe you.

To them, you've doomed the town. Everyone is going to die. The cycle has been broken. Nothing will ever be the same.

They banish you.

And somehow, after saving a child's life and killing the thing responsible for decades of fear, you leave feeling guilty.

I felt such disappointment in their choice, but not the game. It's bleak, and if you've played classic Fallout, you know that's one of its biggest strengths. Moments like that are why Sonora stuck with me long after the credits rolled.

This is the same Fallout: Sonora, of course, that I had to play 100% blind. There were no real guides at the time. This is also the same game that made me want to bash my head into a wall after getting stuck on a cargo ship and having my companions die with little indication of what I was supposed to do next. Eventually, though, I prevailed.

Fallout: Sonora doesn't stop at being a complete Fallout project, either. It has a DLC expansion, Dayglow, that's equally impressive and adds a substantial chunk of content to an already lengthy adventure.

I genuinely think Sonora is worth playing for any Fallout fan who can tolerate a little jank and appreciate what it's trying to accomplish. It's what I wanted from a modern Fallout experience and, somehow, something I didn't even realize I needed.

PS: Just so you know, Sonora has a set of power armor that wears a sombrero, and you can get a sick motorcycle to travel with. I shouldn't have to explain how awesome that is.

• D.