Fallout: New Vegas developer admitted that quest endings are chosen almost at random

Those signature end slides in Obsidian RPGs? Not forged from a checklist so much as from whatever mood the team falls into. Josh Sawyer — the studio's lead designer and one of the people behind Fallout: New Vegas — said as much in a recent video when a fan asked who picks which quests get epilogues.

His answer: no strict system. Usually the project director gets the final say, and Sawyer called the whole thing "quite arbitrary." Quest writers don't typically lobby hard to shoehorn their threads into the ending; instead the team leans on a few expectations (e.g., big plot beats, faction standings, what happens to companions) when shaping that final montage. Smaller side missions may or may not earn a follow-up — sometimes the choice is deliberate, sometimes it's made by feel rather than by a rulebook.