In context: Fallout: London is a “total conversion” mod of Fallout 4. Although it is a mod, it is honestly mote like a full game that rivals Bethesda’s FO4 efforts regarding the number of factions, companions, quests and lines of professionally voiced dialogue (90,000 in FOL vs 110,000 in FO4). It was supposed to launch last month but is now on indefinite hold.
Team FOLON slated Fallout: London to launch on St. George’s Day (April 23, 2024). That very day, Project Lead Dean “Prilladog” Carter announced on Discord that the team had to delay the mod indefinitely. The reason: Bethesda scheduled its next-gen update to drop two days later on the 25th. Carter and other team members were sure that Bethesda’s update would break Fallout: London a mere 48 hours after going live.
Instead of risking a launch that could crash and burn due to Bethesda’s next-gen update, Team FOLON made a difficult but responsible decision to ‘wait and see.’ While disappointing for the thousands of followers on Discord and social media, the developers made this decision hoping that any necessary repairs would be minor and they could deliver the game in its best form within a few days or weeks after the Bethesda update.
“The currently unforeseen technical challenges and logistical issues due to spawn from the update will be necessitating more time to address them. A LOT of these fixes will be coming from 3rd parties so are at the whim of their timely releases. Once we have those fixes, we can then work on fixing the issues the update has caused and get the mod into your hands as soon as humanly possible.”
Now into May, and Team FOLON has yet to issue a public progress update on the project. TechSpot contacted Dean Carter on Discord for more information. Due to NDA conditions, he could not confirm or deny timeline details.
He mentioned that the team is waiting for its development partners to update their systems for the new engine, but the next-gen update is currently in bad shape. Most of the problems it is having are on the PC version. We have tested the update on the PS5 and found no issues out of the ordinary, occasional glitches or crashes that have always been a part of Fallout 4.
Unfortunately, those playing on PC have found that there are so many problems the game is practically unplayable. It broke many mods and is riddled with other bugs and “technical issues.” It’s so bad that mods claiming to remove the next-gen update are surging in the downloads section of Nexus Mods. Until Bethesda patches the update, Team FOLON and other developers it relies on are in stasis.
“These mods, which include the ‘Fallout 4 Downgrader’ and ‘Steam – Skip Next-Gen Update,’ have roughly 60,000 downloads as of this writing, and they’ve each been out for less than a week,” GameSpot noted on Wednesday.
Team FOLON wants to avoid rolling things back because they made the mod for everyone. Carter is confident that they can deliver a final product that meets Team FOLON’s high standards and will only roll back the update as a last resort.
“During the time since our announcement, our focus remains on ensuring that the project meets our high standards and also allows the easiest routes of access and attainability for our users. We understand that most modders out there have found their own new and exciting ways to roll back the update, but please remember we are a mod for everyone, not just the modders. So, we remain by our commitment to release something polished and working on the new system. Only as a last resort, if the update proves to be too troublesome (all signs point to that it won’t be), will we consider rolling things back.”
Bethesda’s update controversy was not restricted solely to PC users. Upon release, PlayStation 5 players found that the free update excluded those who downloaded the game from the PlayStation Plus Collection. Bethesda responded by making the update available to those with a PlayStation Plus Extra (mid-tier) subscription, which enflamed even more players. So, on Wednesday, the studio opened the update to all PS Plus members.
