Bethesda Game Studios is getting ready to launch the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S next-gen update for its 2015 open world RPG best-seller, Fallout 4. The free update is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, 25 April for all owners of the game, which is perfect timing considering the influx of players due to the success of the Fallout TV show. However, the creators of an ambitious mod called Fallout London said they were ‘blindsided’ by the update’s sudden announcement.
For context, Fallout London is a massive, total conversion mod of Fallout 4, taking place in a post-apocalyptic London. Team Folon, the creators of the mod, mainly used assets from Fallout 4 to build the project, shifting away from the franchise’s usual American settings in favour of this European location.
Team Folon’s project lead Dean Carter recently spoke with the BBC regarding the next-gen update for Fallout 4 and how the team had no communication from Bethesda regarding its release, which has now set the London project back. The mod was set to release on 23 April 2024, though it has now been delayed due to the next-gen update launching just two days later.
“This is the thing: they randomly dropped it, that they were going to bring it out on the 25th of April. So that has, for lack of a better term, sort of screwed us over, somewhat,” said Carter to the BBC. He continued:
“We’ve signed NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) with big companies. Why haven’t we done that? They could just say, ‘Well, look, this is when it’s due to come out. Maybe, get your PR in order, or talk to your fans, cage expectations, because this is what’s going to happen,’ rather than just blindsiding us out of nowhere, which is what has happened.”
The next-gen update for Fallout 4 will release on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC this week, bringing a number of long-requested improvements to the game including bug fixes, up to 60FPS support, quest updates and much more. It’s a pretty substantial update for the game, though one that the Fallout London team feels could’ve been communicated better by Bethesda.
As far as supporting mods go, Bethesda is seen by the community as a bit unpredictable. While the publisher is one of the only companies in the industry allowing curated mod support on consoles as well as PC, it also has a tendency to break its own coding. For example, Skyrim Anniversary Edition‘s release altered some coding that made certain mods absolete, requiring modders to patch their work in order to adhere to the new code.
Back in December 2023, an update completely overhauled Bethesda’s modding pages on Skyrim and Fallout 4 that rendered several mods broken – some of which still haven’t been fixed or altered today. It’s easy to see why this frustrated the modding community.
Make sure you follow the official website for Fallout London to get updates on its progress.
Source: BBC
