Fallout: London – A Review

As fans of the Fallout game series may have heard, the delayed release of the Fallout: London mod finally happened and has turned out to be a huge success with a majority of players.  

There are of course people who don’t enjoy it for many reasons, and to their credit they have some legitimate complaints about the mod. For example, even months after release, the mod is plagued by game breaking bugs that can stop certain quests from progressing at all. The Fallout: London team has addressed many of the bugs since its release but it made me wonder: is it worth the hype? So I jumped in. 

Let me preface this by saying, if you don’t know how to install mods, do a little research ahead of time and familiarize yourself with the steps. GOG.com for example, has a tied in version of the Fallout: London mod you can install directly with their copy of Fallout 4, but you must have GOG’s Fallout 4 first. I will say it was worth it for me since it seemed to be the easiest method without having to change anything with the Fallout 4 base game. 

Firstly, the hype was well earned. A lot of time, effort, and love went into producing this mod, and it shows everywhere. The writing and voice acting is, for the most part, quite well done. Textures have been painstakingly layered to bring a real London feel to the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout.  

Three new radio stations offer a wide variety of music to follow The Wayfarer (this iteration’s version of the player character) through their quest to learn who they are after waking up in a strange lab underground, and that’s not to mention the fantastic new ambient music. There are plenty of thriving settlements and cities, many side quests, multiple companions and as always, a slew of Easter Eggs for players to find. 

I would caution players to keep multiple saves as they progress, and to make use of reddit threads since multiple users have graciously posted fixes or suggestions for game issues. Some quests may have Non-Player Characters (NPCs) stuck in place which require console commands to move them to trigger quest progression. Others can require the completion of other quests, but since the game doesn’t tell you you’re left going back to an earlier save point.  

Are there bugs? Yes, quite a few, but because the mod is only offered on PC currently users can overcome most, if not all, of these issues with console commands. Multiple players have complained on Reddit about this but in my experience with Fallout: London it’s been a small price to pay to have such a great mod that feels like a whole new Fallout game. I highly recommend it.