We review Fallout: London

I love modding the Fallout games, I always have. I've written several articles about it, but sometimes there are very special modifications to Bethesda games that you just have to try. One such mod is Fallout London. I first became aware of this unique project a year ago, and now it's finally out after being delayed by Bethesda's attempts to update the original Fallout 4. I modded the GOG version of Fallout 4, but if you have a version of the game with all the additions, you can easily play Fallout London too.

Firstly, let me explain what it takes to get Fallout London to work. If you have the game on Steam, you need to downgrade Fallout 4. Everything you need is on the Nexus Mods website, and if you search for Fallout London, you can easily find the tools. Once you've installed them, head back to Nexus Mods and install two mods through Nexus' Mod Manager Vortex: the Buffout 4 modification and the Long Loading Times Fix. Once these are in place, you're ready to explore Broken London with only a few bugs and imperfections.

The story in Fallout London stays true to the general narrative of the Fallout universe. In 2077, the US and China went to war and bombed each other back to the Stone Age. The problem with nuclear wars is that the rest of the world gets destroyed too, and that includes London, which has been well and truly levelled. You wake up in a large test tube, surrounded by two scientists who tell you that you are their best experiment, but the lab is quickly attacked and the two scientists die before you get answers. You free yourself from your glass prison and try to escape the creepy building. Along the way you meet a mysterious person, Mr Smythe, who clearly knows what's going on and who you are. He calls your character The Wayfarer before seemingly meeting his doom. You escape the building and are met by the devastation of London, where you quickly encounter some members of the Vagabond faction who take you to their headquarters. Here you'll be given your first missions and then you'll be set free in the ruined streets of London to do as you please.

It's fantastic, and Bethesda themselves couldn't have done better than Team Folon, who made the modification. One thing I quickly realised was that there is more history hidden around the corners of London. There are holotapes in many buildings that tell interesting stories from people who have been in the area. It's amazing and gives you a great insight into the world. I would say that it's actually better than what Bethesda itself does. The main story is wonderfully mysterious and the many quests you find around London are interesting, which is impressive for a group of fans. Hats off to Team Folon.

Fallout London is full of English charm and eccentricity. All the voice actors are native English and the dialects follow the area, which is great. You also encounter a lot of English culture. For example, one of the first missions is to find sixteen blue police boxes. If you're even a little bit of a Dr Who fan, you'll know what that means. In addition, the factions are super English. There's the Hooligan faction and further into London you'll meet the Beefeater faction, which has a penchant for human flesh. If you're an Anglophile, Fallout London is a treasure trove of English culture and "stiff upper lip," and of course litres of tea.

Fallout London is built on the skeleton of Fallout 4, so much of the game's design will feel familiar if you've played the main game. However, Team Folon has made things more primitive by borrowing mechanics from Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. First of all, your character is mute, so only the characters you meet speak. This helps with immersion as your character can make sounds as your imagination allows. The progression is a mix of the different Fallout games. You level up and earn perk points, which you get one per level. These perks are familiar from the other games in the series, but are balanced well and sometimes modified to be more useful. Some are stronger and some weaker than in Fallout 4, but they work great. I made a stealth Wayfarer, Binky Fuzzcoggle, because you have to have a silly English name. This specialised sneak was quite effective and really fun to play. You'll also find a whole bunch of cool new weapons, with only a small portion borrowed from Fallout 4. The modification system from Fallout 4 is back here, meaning you can upgrade your gear if you've picked up enough reusable junk. Fallout London is a Fallout game at its core, but the Folon team has really put their stamp on it and I had more fun at times than I did in Fallout 4 when I first played it years ago. It's crazy.

Fallout London is a huge game. The most popular parts of London are rendered in great detail and when you first encounter some of the most recognisable landmarks, it can be awe-inspiring. For example, I was walking around and suddenly found myself in front of The London Eye, which had now been turned into a housing estate with people living in the wheel and below. It was crazy to take the lift up to these buildings and look out over London, enjoying the detail and being impressed by how long it must have taken the Folon team to do just this small part of the modification. I had this experience all the time because Fallout London must have taken a huge amount of time. That's why the game is as big as Fallout 4 and Far Harbor combined. There are hundreds of hours of gameplay in Fallout London, and it's free. Ultra impressive! That's probably the biggest problem in Fallout London, because there are a lot of errors and bugs. Missions that don't quite work. Graphical glitches and the game crashes from time to time. Not so much after installing the Buffout modification, but it still happens, so remember to save. However, I would say it's no worse than Fallout 4 was when it first came out, and it's only minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things. Another thing that isn't the best either is the voice acting. It's generally fine, but you can notice that the sound changes depending on which microphone each actor has used. It can take you out of the experience sometimes.

So I can conclude by saying that if you're even a little bit of a Fallout fan, this mod is a must try. It's completely free and offers a fantastic take on what Fallout could be like outside the US Wasteland. It's an impressive project that provides hundreds of hours of Fallout entertainment, retaining Bethesda's game design but improving it almost universally. Well, enough of that - I need to go back and see if I can find the Tower of London and see if the Crown Jewels are there, and if they are, steal them.