Wild Card: Change in Management is a main quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Objectives
Main Quest: Wild Card: Change in Management | |||||
Recover the platinum chip from Benny. | |||||
Kill or disable Mr. House. | |||||
Reward: 300 XP | |||||
Leads to: The House Always Wins, Wild Card: You and What Army?, Wild Card: Side Bets, Wild Card: Finishing Touches, Render Unto Caesar, For the Republic, Part 2 | |||||
Quick walkthrough
This series of quests leads to one of many Fallout: New Vegas endings. Once you discover Yes Man, he will explain Benny's plan to kill Mr. House and take over New Vegas. The player will then be able to choose either to continue with Benny's plans or take on this quest, killing Benny. You will have to head towards the Lucky 38 penthouse, locate the chamber in which Mr. House actually resides, and either choose to disable him or kill him. If you choose to kill Mr. House, meet Yes Man at The Tops casino and accompany him to Lucky 38.
Detailed walkthrough
After entering the Lucky 38 penthouse, find a terminal on the wall near Mr. House. This terminal will allow you to unlock a hidden door (named the antechamber) leading to Mr. House's chamber. Unlocking the terminal requires either:
- 75 Science
- A Lucky 38 VIP keycard from the H&H Tools Factory (top floor) or from Chief Hanlon's desk in his office (inside the main building at Camp Golf).
- The platinum chip.
After activating the door, an alarm will sound and the securitrons will become hostile. They can easily be defeated with the pulse gun, or if you have a Stealth Boy, you can use it to sneak past them. It is also possible to run past them and head to the next terminal. Behind the hidden door lies another terminal, as well as several securitrons which will attack on sight. Activate this to head on to the control room.
Once in the control room, there is one final terminal. Activate it to release Mr. House's isolation chamber and expose him to the outside world. You can then talk to him, and he will tell you how your "Vanity Project is doomed to fail." You then can decide his fate by going back to the terminal and choosing to either kill him (also possible via the "sterilize chamber" option) or leave him helpless, both of which result in loss of Karma. Note that once the isolation chamber has been opened, regardless of the fate you decide for Mr. House, he will die within a year from exposure to outside contaminants. Alternatively, after you open the chamber, you can attack him. This will result in his death and a strange death animation where the entire isolation chamber will jump to the side and will still continue the quest.
To pass the initial terminal, you can choose to either pass a Hard difficulty hack or execute an executive override and obtain the password to the terminal from either H&H Tools Factory or the hotel in Camp Golf.
If you decide to kill Mr. House, you will receive the note A Tragedy Has Befallen All Mankind, and the quest The House Has Gone Bust! will instantly be started and failed.
Once you have killed Mr. House, it is time to meet Yes Man. Return to Benny's suite at the Tops - he's in the room beyond his bed. Talk to him and he'll agree to meet you at the Lucky 38.
Sometimes, Yes Man disappears after you kill Benny, if you leave Benny's apartment and return later. He can be found standing outside of The Tops casino. You can tell him to meet you at the Lucky 38 without incurring any faction penalties. Once you meet him in the Penthouse of the Lucky 38, where House's avatar formerly spoke to you the first time, the installation of Yes Man is triggered. This triggers two quests: Beware the Wrath of Caesar! and Don't Tread on the Bear!. This puts you on notice that working with Yes Man further will cause you to be unable to work with those factions.
After installing him on the Lucky 38 mainframe, he will make the demonstration about the Securitron upgrades at the Lucky 38 basement.
You can let Yes Man wait for you at the Lucky 38 until you finish most of your other quests with the NCR and Caesar's Legion and are ready to proceed.
Quest stages
Notes
- If you initiate a Lucky 38 executive override, the securitrons will not be hostile to you when you activate the terminal to go into Mr. House's chamber.
- You can perform this quest simultaneously with For the Republic, Part 2 and Render Unto Caesar, as long as you have not completed both Wild Card: Side Bets and Wild Card: Change in Management, or if the NCR or the Legion have become hostile to you. You would have the potential to still be on both the NCR and Legion's good side.
Bugs
- Wild Card: Side Bets first, and then returning to Yes Man, or entering the Cocktail Lounge via the Lucky 38's main elevator. [verified] Sometimes, when Mr. House is killed and you return to Yes Man to take over, Yes Man will go towards the Lucky 38 and disappear. This will cause the game to glitch when returning to the Lucky 38, making a fade out and fade in effect, when a cutscene with Yes Man should normally play. The player will then be unable to move, but can still look around on the spot and the Pipboy will be unaccessible. This can sometimes be fixed by completing
- If, after informing Mr. House you're keeping the chip no matter what, you leave the Lucky 38 without killing or disabling him (and even if you killed Victor in the ensuing fight) an unarmed Securitron with Victor's face will chase you around the strip, punching you. He can't follow you into Strip establishments, but people all around you panic as if he were there. [verified]
- Sometimes you will try to access the Penthouse terminal to enter the inner chamber, but it will not trigger. Also sometimes the terminal doesn't open immediately (just beeps) but if you turn away the terminal screen appears wherever you are in the room. It may just require waiting several minutes after using the open command to begin using the terminal. [verified]
- You discover Yes Man after you have killed both Benny and Mr House, as well as destroyed the Securitron bunker, and you tell Yes Man about your actions (it may not matter if you say anything). A flashing waypoint will lead you to Yes Man once you leave dialogue. You cannot enter a dialogue, but Yes Man tells you he can't wait to get into the mainframe. Completing the quest Wild Card: Side Bets may resolve this bug. [verified]
- After observing the Secturitron upgrades and being returned to Yes Man, speaking to him again to receive the note regarding the Secturitron bunker at the Fort will cause the Wait and 3rd/1st person view buttons to become unresponsive. This makes waiting and toggling 3rd/1st person view permanently unavailable. It is possible to completely avoid this conversation, as it is not a requirement for carrying out Wild Card: You and What Army? [verified]