Fallout: London: Review of the best mod for Fallout 4

Numerous lists of the best mods for Fallout 4 mainly include those that make the game less buggy and more convenient, add an improved map, functional displays, expand the capabilities of settlements, allow you to play as a ghoul or attract monsters to your side, and so on. But there have never been such large and significant story mods as Fallout: London. Another thing is that work Team FOLON I don’t really want to call it a user modification. Essentially, this is a stand-alone game in the spirit of creativity Bethesda, and in the same way, during its passage it can cause different feelings – from irritation to admiration and back.

Five years to dream

Of course, interesting story mods for F4 already been, but London stands out sharply. Of course – we got a completely new region, 200 quests, 20 factions fighting for power, 7 satellites and the same number of settlements. All this fits on a map comparable in size to the location from the DLC Far Harbor. And it will take you about 90 hours to master the "London" content.

Naturally, the development of such a large-scale mod, which enthusiasts worked on, could not go without problems. Work began in 2019, the release was originally planned for 2023, but then postponed to the spring of this year. Then she caused the problems herself Bethesda — the next-gen update she released turned out to be incompatible with Fallout: London, and the exit was postponed again.

After unsuccessful attempts to make the patch work with the mod, the authors released it on GOG in its original form, that is, compatible with the 2019 version. For the Steam version you need to downgrade, and in the end the installation itself Fallout: London turned into a separate quest that not everyone could cope with.

Back to 2015!

Those who managed it and, in principle, love Fallout 4, they are unlikely to regret these dances with a tambourine. There are reasons for irritation, but they are mainly related to the original itself. Let me remind you, this is a game from 2015, which even four years later was imperfect.

Therefore, for those who have not played for a long time Fallout 4, the return may be very painful. Characters getting stuck in textures; Dumb AI; long downloads; an excessive amount of poorly organized consumables, forcing you to dig through your inventory for a long time; a crooked sight on a sniper rifle; in general, battles, interface and navigation are not very convenient – and this is not the whole list. There are plenty of reasons for irritation, and Fallout: London added new ones – for example, frequent crashes.

London, goodbye!

However, in this modification you get used to suffering and enduring. It’s about story, scale, atmosphere and attention to detail. The story takes place in dilapidated post-nuclear London in 2237, between the events of the first and second Fallout. We come to our senses in a capsule in an unknown laboratory, escape from there on a train, which immediately crashes, survive and set off to find out who we are, what we are, how it happened to us, what kind of laboratory this is and what experiments were carried out there.

The plot, however, is not impressive. The authors play with the standard cliche about the hero’s amnesia, and even do it not in the best way. The character himself says that he doesn’t really understand what’s going on and who he is, but after 10 minutes he can easily get involved in gang warfare and even act as an arbitrator in a conflict between the manager of a canned dog factory and the workers.

Lord, what factories, what workers, who are all these people, who am I?? Let me come to my senses at least a little and figure out what’s going on around me. There is clearly a lack of a more accurate and subtle introduction that would carefully and logically lead the hero with such a diagnosis into this harsh and unfamiliar world.

But these first impressions are forgotten (well, almost!) after we are drawn into what is happening and realize the scale of events. In post-apocalyptic London, divided into 15 districts, there is a complex struggle for power and two dozen factions, and we are free to join many of them.

Already at the very beginning, the leader of the Vagabonds group dumps tons of information about local disputes on us who are clueless and invites us to join. But I would advise you to first see the world, meet other factions, get to know them and then decide who you are with.

In addition to all sorts of bandits (for example, from the Syndicate), there are aristocrats and those in power from the Gentry, there are adherents of the Empire from the Fifth Column, mysterious Angels, civil militia (essentially cops, or Tommy, as they are called in London). There are even local pro-republic Knights of the Round Table from Camelot.

Naturally, the main factions have https://non-uk-casinos.co.uk/review/love-casino/ their own views, proposals and quest chains. Accordingly, the endings are also different. And in general, everything is not bad with non-linearity, although this aspect is not up to the level of Fallout: New Vegas. There are moral dilemmas, some tasks can be completed in different ways, which affects the plot and changes other quests. The authors also improved the dialogue system F4 and replaced the standard options “Yes”, “No” and “Sarcasm” with full-fledged replicas.

Against such enemies you want to use only the power of words.

London – a city of contrasts

We will not meet with all factions at once. You will become acquainted with the main political forces only 20 hours (if not more) after the start of the game, but even before that you will not be bored. We help the fish people (these are mutated Londoners living near the Thames), capture a moving train, deciding whether to destroy it or redirect it, take an extreme boat ride, attack a bank, where we fight not only bandits, but also… dryads.

There are a lot of things familiar to the third and fourth Fallout (and in general for games from Bethesda) quests in the spirit of “Run, Kill, Fetch”. But there are also really interesting tasks, and for different tastes. Here you will find both horror missions and almost humorous ones, like the opportunity to meet the Germans on a submarine, where the artificial intelligence of Immanuel Kant will be discovered – you can even chat with him on philosophical topics.

Mutants from the Thames retain their intelligence and lead a completely human lifestyle.

The locations are large and at the same time rich. While running about your business through the destroyed streets of London, you may accidentally witness a showdown between characters who clearly have not shared something – you will immediately be asked for help, although no one is stopping you from refusing.

Sooner or later you will stumble upon kamikaze robots, cannibals, knights in armor or pirates with muskets. Or a ghoul in a hat and tails hanging upside down (obviously not of his own free will) – it turns out that this is a tax collector in the service of one of the factions. And he may well become your companion. IN Fallout: London generally interesting and colorful partners. For example, I liked the very energetic girl Chiera, who calls herself a famous treasure hunter and sincerely believes in time travel. You can communicate with companions, and some initiate conversations themselves.

There’s a British spirit here, it smells like Britain!

All this is multiplied by the atmosphere and elaboration of the city itself, by how well London is realized. The area is full of English flags, red telephone booths, and the same red double-decker buses. There are the Thames, Big Ben, Westminster and other attractions, albeit not entirely intact. From time to time fog falls over all this and it starts to rain. All that’s missing is for the song “Half a Year of Bad Weather” to be heard from the headphones, from a Soviet, but British-in-spirit film "Mary Poppins, goodbye".

There are other details. Someone will throw out in the dialogue that they supposedly want to organize Anarchy in the U.K. (this is the name of the iconic Sex Pistols song), someone will sing “God Save the Queen”. There was even a radio station with British music in the style of the Beatles – this is in addition to two others: with classics and jazz from the third and fourth games.

And of course, there is a lot of tea and teapots here. There are even workbenches where you can prepare tea – different types give certain effects as consumables. Judging by the reviews, Londoners themselves are delighted with the game and say that there are many references here that are understandable only to residents of Foggy Albion.

But I’m sure everyone will appreciate how seriously the authors took their work. They made many new assets, including for posters, terminals, advertising signs and money – here the currency is not Yader-Cola caps, but metro tickets. And even “Vault-Boy” was changed to ATTA-Boy – new animations were drawn for him, which represent all the available skills.

All dialogues are voiced – yes, some actors seem to overact or their voices are not quite suitable, but by and large everything is done at a good level and does not look like fan creations. The authors even went crazy and came up with new DJs for the radio station that plays good old jazz. And there the funny dialogues of a rude goon and a real English gentleman are voiced simply gorgeous.

Somewhere it’s easier, somewhere it’s more difficult..

There are also changes to the gameplay itself – and they concern not only extended dialogues. The role-playing system has become simpler. It all comes down to the fact that we invest one point in increasing characteristics or in learning/improving numerous skills, some of which depend on the character’s parameters.

Mostly skills migrated from the original. But many, including me, noticed that in London, for example, you can learn both “gender” perks at the same time – one increases damage against women, and also gives unique remarks when communicating with them, the second does the same in relation to men.

But the battles, on the contrary, have become more difficult. More precisely, the enemies here are fatter and more dangerous, and the shortage of ammunition and medicine, as well as money, is quite serious – especially in the first third of the passage. I played on normal difficulty and always felt tense, and in battles with story bosses I kept wanting to lower the temperature. But on Very Easy it will also be difficult to deal with some legendary ghoul – even with the support of several NPCs.

The recipe is clear – explore the world, do quests, upgrade your character and his equipment. By the way, in Fallout: London many new items and weapons have appeared. One of the most colorful is the musket: it takes a very long time to load, but you have to see how it’s animated!

Say a word about poor design

And yet, in a number of aspects it is felt that the authors lacked experience. This is primarily manifested in the design of some tasks and locations. In general, the exploration of the world is built on the principle of the original game – we walk, wander, clear and clear everything, fuel our curiosity with the anticipation of new meetings, battles and adventures, realizing that we will definitely stumble upon something interesting. But it can be difficult to understand how to get to the desired point, what the authors want from us, where is this bad tunnel that needs to be blown up, and so on.

Or you come to London Bridge, you are asked to pay for the passage, you try to threaten to avoid paying, you have enough skill, and in response they tell you – well, okay, just go to the area of ​​​​the neighboring bridge and destroy three cannibal camps there! And this happens almost at the beginning of the game. Damn, it’s easier to immediately give away these unfortunate 10 tickets or fill you all up!

What were the designers thinking when they gathered several dozen bandits from the Syndicate on the street near one of the houses?? As soon as they see us, they attack with the whole crowd. It’s impossible to cope – you have to rush as fast as you can into the plot building. And at the exit from it, run away again at the same speed. It’s clear that there was enough of this in the original, but why replenish this well of game design ideas??

Already at the very beginning, when we get to know the Vagrants and begin to work for them, we are bombarded with the same type of assignments. Moreover, the locations in that area are not outstanding.

Add to this crashes and bugs (for example, my partners sent to a settlement later disappeared or refused to talk) – and as a result, the game can scare you away already at the start. Although, as I said, everything is much more epic and interesting, and over time you will come across non-trivial tasks.

If you love Fallout 4 and, in principle, its signature gameplay Bethesda and want to take part in a new story, but with the taste of English tea and the smell of the Thames, then you definitely need to try Fallout: London. The game does not reach the level of New Vegas in terms of non-linearity and elaboration of quests/dialogues/characters (well, in most cases), but it is still a very powerful and professional work, which one cannot dare to call an amateur mod. But if playing this in 2024 hurts you mentally and physically, then it’s better not to touch it. The authors promise to release patches that correct various errors, but they will not correct the very ideology of game design within the framework of this mod. I equally enjoyed it and swore at the screen.

Pros: a large plot with many tasks, locations and factions that you can join; a very atmospheric and detailed post-apocalyptic London that is fun to explore; intense battles; colorful partners; beautiful landscapes; great job with music and voice acting (although there are exceptions).

Cons: bugs and crashes; at the beginning there are a lot of boring locations and template quests; not very successful design of some locations and missions; basically this is the same game from almost 10 years ago with all the consequences.

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