Fallout London

Push through the bugs – this game is worth your time.

Nostalgia factor: Medium. Fallout 4 is currently my favorite game of all time.
Difficulty: Medium. Notably more difficult than previous Fallout games.

Wow. What a ride. When I first heard about Fallout: London, I was skeptical. Many fan-made projects in the Bethesda-verse have made headlines before, but only a few have actually crossed the finish line, and reviews have been mixed. Fallout London is easily the most impressive fan-made content I’ve ever played. It’s been described as a “DLC sized story mod”, but in reality it’s just a full blown Fallout game with over 90 hours of content. Read on for the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

There is so much to love in Fallout London. I’ve never been across the pond, so I probably missed a lot of great references, but even this clueless Yankee could tell from the get-go that this game is loaded with quality British easter eggs – brands, products, stores, historical figures, Banksy artwork, a TARDIS sidequest, subtle references to Alice in Wonderland, 007, the Italian Job, Harry Potter, and more.

Of course, the real star of this game is the incredible game world. They say the map is about as big as Fallout 4’s Commonwealth plus the Far Harbor DLC. The environments are highly detailed and in many cases look as good if not better than Fallout 4’s environments. It was such a treat to visit famous landmarks like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, and Westminster. The game is massive. I’m used to fan-made content being bite-sized at 2-4 hours tops. Fallout London has over 200 quests, 20 different major and minor factions, 7 companions, and 15 boroughs. I skipped quite a few sidequests and still clocked over 60hrs before rolling credits.

The quality voice acting really sets Fallout London apart from other fan-made content, featuring notable names like Neil Newbon, Colin Baker, Anna Demetriou, and Sylvester McCoy. Hilariously, they also got real life former Speaker of the House John Bercow to voice Fallout London’s Speaker of the House. I was very impressed with the voice acting. I only noticed one or two clips that sounded like they were recorded on a cheap mic in someone’s kitchen. Only a few performances sounded more amateur than professional.

Most of the writing and quest design ranges from serviceable to quite good. The story does not ascend to the heights of Fallout 4 (my favorite Fallout game), but I still very much enjoyed discovering Fallout London’s characters and questlines. There are many, many moments of brilliance – blowing on the the ATTA-boy (the cousin of the Pip Boy) like an old NES cartridge before jamming it into an interface, hearing the fish-like Thamesfolk say “look at this stuff, isn’t it neat”, feeling like I’m on an episode of Peaky Blinders each time I’m sent on a quest for the Vagabonds.

I loved shooting at Hooligans like a bandit on the Ferryman’s boat ride, trekking through irradiated waters in the underground foot tunnel, exploring abandoned labs, and treading through a bone-chilling quarantine zone, praying I don’t get “tunnel cough”. The main faction questline wraps up nicely (one of three options), and aside from a few anti-climactic moments (and a hard crash to desktop), the finale sequence was an absolute thrill. In typical Fallout fashion, there are plenty of twists and surprises.

Massive shootouts are much more frequent in Fallout London. Several times in my playthrough, I found myself in the midst of a huge battle. Hoards of enemies were not uncommon. Sometimes, these enemy waves proved too difficult, requiring some quick-save-quick-load trickery to brute force my way through. However, I can tell that the devs were intentional in trying to inject a lot of exciting encounters into the game.

The original soundtrack from Daniel Morrison et al. is very impressive. The chill tracks aren’t quite as listenable as Inon Zur’s Fallout 4 soundtrack (again, my favorite), but it provides effective accompaniment for your trek through ol’ Blighty. The combat tracks are so good, I think I prefer them to Inon’s.

Perhaps the greatest thing about Fallout London is the price tag – free. Of course, you’ll need to own a copy of Fallout 4 GOTY Edition (the GOG version is recommended), but I’m still amazed that this thing doesn’t cost a dime. I suppose there would be legal issues for such monetization. This ragamuffin crew of hobbyists, industry professionals, modders, and game enthusiasts (now known collectively as Team FOLON) has my gratitude. After more than four years of development, Fallout London is here, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Thank you.

The Bad

Unfortunately, a passion project like this is not without its challenges. With a budget of $0 (or whatever these volunteer developers were willing to personally expense) and limited time for development between day job shifts, it’s honestly a miracle that Fallout London is as stable as it is. That being said, Fallout London version 1.01 (the version I played) makes Fallout 4 look as polished as a chrome bumper on a brand new Corvega.

Thankfully, the team just released a huge patch for version 1.02 (literally minutes after I rolled credits on the game). There are already reports coming out that this update has made a massive difference. With each patch they release, my long list of complaints will become increasingly obsolete. However, I do feel that I shouldn’t try to sugar coat the many issues I encountered.

One of the first things I noticed was the oddly “zoomed out” terminal perspective. Even with a standard 1080p monitor just two feet away from my face, I could barely read the tiny text. There are no options to zoom in without using a mod.

The indie nature of the project becomes apparent more often than I’d like to admit. I struggled with Archie’s voice acting. It’s not uncommon for female voice actors to play the role of young boys (ie: Tara Strong, Sarah Natochenny, Nancy Cartwright), but in Archie’s case, the squeaky female tone didn’t quite sell it for me. The same voice actress did a fantastic job with the other roles she voiced.

NPCs get in the way much more often than in Fallout 4. The Thameshaven market in particular is a struggle. The first companion I partied with got in my way all the time in tight spaces. I don’t remember this being as much of an issue in FO4. It’s exacerbated by the fact that pretty much every NPC barks some kind of aggressive dialogue at you if you touch them. I also noticed LOTS of outdated dialogue from NPCs. After major story events occur, the random bits of dialogue from many NPCs becomes anachronistic and loses relevance. For example, after successfully finishing the Vagabond quests, one of the leaders I had been working closely with randomly said this canned line to me as I walked past, “If I had my way, you wouldn’t dare show your face around here.” Really? Weren’t you just singing my praises after I finished all of those quests? I thought we were friends. This can be an immersion killer.

The simple animations that replaced the vault boy animations are sometimes charming, but on the whole it feels like they come up short, seeming a bit cheesy or amateur. Sometimes conversation options are limited. There are a few underdeveloped quests with weak illusion of choice – you really just get cornered into one outcome in the end. You may also miss some dialogue options if you don’t select them in the right order. I had to search r/fallout4london for help with many many quests that weren’t very intuitive. My objectives just weren’t indicated clearly enough. Items were hidden too well, or I just couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go.

I didn’t come across many terminals in the game, so my investment in the hacking perk felt a bit wasted. Other perks seem less relevant as well. I didn’t have that many opportunities to use charisma speech checks. This may just be a limitation of the game’s scale. As big as Fallout London is, Fallout 4 was still much more developed.

The difficulty has been a point of contention. Fallout London is notably more difficult than other Fallout games. While the added challenge may be welcome for some gamers, there are clear balancing issues. The Vagabond questline in the early game is almost mandatory, because you will be sorely lacking in tickets (replaces “caps”), ammo, and healing items otherwise. In general, healing items are expensive and scarce in the early game, so you’ll need to take advantage of cooking stations to supply yourself with rad-free healing items. I stocked up on affordable pizzas from the Thameshaven Market.

Radiation is much more serious in Fallout London, which I can appreciate. The Thames River will kill you in seconds (169 rads per second)! I did find it frustrating navigating the marshy areas near the Thames. It’s too easy to fall into the deadly puddles, and Rad-Away is very expensive. Rad storms have been upgraded as well. They are much more than just an mild annoyance in Fallout London.

Extreme difficulty spikes seem to come out of nowhere and can limit your progress in the game. My first battle against a Super Clone Experiment was very difficult. I must’ve died a dozen times trying to take him out. I tried to kite him, but he was too quick with too much HP, and he kept one-shotting me. Luckily, I was able to find a caps mine in my companion’s inventory which I used to crippled his legs. This allowed me to finish him off safely. I encountered a Glowing One in the Bank of England that killed me in two shots. I unloaded a whole clip into this thing and its HP barely dropped 10%. There are some spongey enemies in this game. Mines and grenades are a must for some of these tough mini-bosses, and you will be hurting for ammo until your tickets and inventory reaches critical mass in the late game.

I died several times during an intense firefight with more than a dozen syndicate goons accompanied by an insanely beefy Protectron. Maybe I was under-leveled for that area, but I had to be very strategic with my reloads and positioning. The Robo-Margot boss in one of the later Vagabond missions is also very difficult to defeat. She has such a massive amount of HP, she’s very quick, and she will one shot you if she gets close. Once again, the only effective strategy that seemed to work for me was crippling her legs with mines or grenades.

While these tough mini-bosses make for great gaming stories, the difficulty borders on frustrating, especially if you’re not expecting it. Pro tip: quick-save incessantly and make hard saves at least every few minutes. I remember shredding up some easy hooligans on my way to a new area, but then out of nowhere I got absolutely obliterated in seconds by a pack of 8 lamprey floaters. I’ve read some reports that some enemies may spawn with bugged stats.

I love the 3D environments they’ve crafted, but I did find myself continually frustrated with how maze-like everything is. Every building, every corridor, every borough is difficult to navigate. Invisible walls sometimes block what looks like perfectly traversable terrain. Blockades, walls, and dead-ends are everywhere. You’ll wander aimlessly for 10 minutes or more around a quest marker just trying to find the intended entrance to a location, since too often it isn’t clearly indicated or marked.

The Crystal Palace Maze in particular is just… too difficult, too disorienting. The vine textures and the low contrast lighting make it almost impossible to even make out a path forward. I was lost for so long. It was migraine inducing. Many on r/Fallout4London confessed to just using no clip to get through the maze. Healthy challenge is always welcome in a game, but repeatedly feeling hopelessly lost while trying to finish quests is not a great experience.

The Ugly

If you own Fallout 4 on Steam, it’s an absolute nightmare to install Fallout London, as you have to downgrade your version of the game (the GOG version of FO4 is pre-patched and ready to go). I ran into issues at every turn. Make sure you follow the instructions to the letter, and then expect to use reddit and google to troubleshoot. For some reason, the automatic downgrader tool just did not work for me. I spent hours manually downgrading my Steam Fallout 4 to version 1.10.163.0. After GOG finally detected my Fallout 4 install location, I received an “access denied” error. I was able to fix it by manually replacing the CustomControlMap.txt file in the FO4 directory with the file of the same name from the Fallout London package. Make sure all of your old mods are cleared, because they can break the game.

I encountered numerous graphical glitches and bugs, some benign, some egregious. I kept a tally of crashes. The game hard crashed to desktop 13 times during my 60 hour playthrough. Yikes. One time it crashed so hard, even Windows 10 barfed. I had to hard boot my PC. I lost count of how many quests were broken and unplayable — not just random sidequests, but core portions of the main quest. Until all of these broken quests are fixed, you may be required to use complicated console commands to force the game forward. The ferry ride shootout was completely bugged for me. I clipped through the boat at the end and died almost immediately in the Thames. The “Lost and Won” quest was also hopelessly broken. I spent an hour fussing with console commands just trying to get to the end of it. This deeply frustrated me.

Countless times, my companion just disappeared or re-appeared in strange glitchy ways. I watched NPCs walk through objects, get stuck on objects, or appear in strange places. There’s a shop bug that seemed to sell off items I didn’t select to sell. Items just seemed to go missing from my inventory. While in dialogue cutscenes, the camera would sometimes focus on random uninvolved NPCs or wig out on the ceiling. The gun mods are wack. The stat boosts or nerfs of each upgrade would sometimes be way off. Some of the “upgrades” only made the stats worse, no increases. I had a Chinese Submachine Gun with 325 range? That can’t be right. Once I was able to select and apply a grayed out mod for which I did not meet the requirements. I used that souped up laser rifle for the rest of the game. It helped with the difficulty, I guess.

At least three or four times, I fell into areas that I could not get out of. I had to enable “no clip” mode in the console or load a previous save. Many times, I had to use “no clip” or “god mode” just to advance past broken quest stages. Once, I needed to talk to Chill Winston, but for some reason he was in the middle of the fatally radioactive Thames? There was a faction quest that would not start and no amount of console finagling could get it to work. I had to skip the quest entirely. Once, an enemy I needed to deal with spawned in a room that I didn’t have access to. I had to use the console to get to him.

On multiple occasions, an NPC’s audio files would all cue simultaneously, overlapping each other in unintelligible chaos. Certain locations seemed to really tax my RTX 3060 and Ryzen 5-5500, especially Trafalgar Square. Some pieces of armor are awkwardly intrusive into the 1st person viewport. Sometimes the gender of an enemy body changes after you loot their armor.

In Conclusion

All of the aforementioned issues are just a sample of the jank I encountered. Obviously, all of these issues detracted significantly from my enjoyment, BUT, I’m glad I pushed through. I generously scored Fallout London with an 8/10, choosing to disregard the high level of dysfunction. Version 1.02 is likely leaps and bounds better than the version I played. Team FOLON is continuing to make improvements. I believe they will “Cyberpunk 2077” this thing, fully correcting these flaws.

What excites me most about Fallout London is its status as “proof of concept.” Todd Howard has stated before that Bethesda has no plans to create Fallout games that take place outside of the US. I understand that retro-futuristic Americana is a core part of the franchise, but Fallout London has expertly demonstrated that an international Fallout game works very very well. It still feels like Fallout, but it unlocks a whole new cornucopia of cultural references and a fresh perspective on The Great War.

Other volunteer dev teams are chasing this dream as well. I recently learned about the Fallout: Nuevo Mexico project, a full conversion mod for Fallout: New Vegas. I would love to explore a post-apocalyptic Mexico. I can’t stop daydreaming about new Fallout games in various countries. Imagine a Fallout Tokyo, Fallout Paris, Fallout Jamaica, Fallout Venice, Fallout Beijing, Fallout Moscow. The possibilities are endless. Someone, please, make these games a reality.

In the meantime, if you are confident in your Bethesda console skills, and if you have the patience to endure some jank, Fallout London is absolutely worth your time.