If you want to play Fallout on PC after the show, here’s a warning

Like so many other people did after I finished that Stand out series on Amazon Prime, I wanted to get back into a Fallout game. I lived in the Boston area – where Fallout 4 plays – in 2015 when this game was released, so I spent almost 70 hours there, but couldn’t resist the temptation to start my favorite game in the series: Fallout: New Vegas. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

My copy of the game is available on Steam, and while the console versions have improved over the years, long-term support on PC has been abysmal. I knew from the start that I would have to install a lot of mods to get it to work, but I had never installed mods before. However, it became abundantly clear to me that I needed to look into modding when I started an old save file. My character’s model was almost completely gone and I was being chased by enemies I couldn’t fight.

My final count for installed Fallout: New Vegas Mods was at 102. That’s actually not a lot for this game, but as someone who doesn’t install mods unless they’re absolutely necessary, this was quite an undertaking. Bethesda games always have large modding communities, but because NewVegas has been difficult to play on PC for years, the number of mods you can install is staggering. While there are far fewer hurdles for console gamers, it’s still extremely disappointing that Fallout games have suffered from a lack of support over the years.

Luckily, there is a great guide for beginners Viva New Vegas that will guide you through all the steps to obtain NewVegas in operation. It’s called a “modular vanilla plus” guide, meaning you’ll play a version of the game that’s close enough to the original, but with big improvements in graphics, frame rate, and overall quality of life. You also don’t need to install all mods (although this is helpful since many of them require others to run). Although the instructions are easy to use, it still takes time hours To install the correct software, set everything up and start installing each mod in the guide one by one. There are resources on Nexus mods that will shorten this time, but as someone who never installs mods, I wanted to make sure everything worked smoothly. In any case, that wasn’t the case, and I had to spend even more hours troubleshooting to get rid of all the bugs, but in the end I was finally able to play this almost 15 year old game.

Admittedly, it’s not unusual for a studio to phase out updates for older titles with smaller player bases – and many of Bethesda’s efforts are focused on online multiplayer. Fallout 76And Fallout 5and there are other franchises to worry about, like Elder Scrolls and Starfield. But for such an extensive series and a highly anticipated and promoted show, more effort should have been made to at least make it clearer how these games would run on PC.

Bethesda knew there would be a huge influx of players, which is why it certainly timed a series of game updates and promotions to coincide with the launch of the Fallout show. The biggest of these was a next-gen update for Fallout 4. This brought major performance improvements to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series Fallout 4 Since this is the newest mainline Fallout game, it was a good decision to make it more modern for the expected new players who want to check out the game series after the show.

Unfortunately, many reports suggest that the Fallout 4 The update was disappointing on all platforms, especially PC and Steam Deck. While the game received the coveted Steam Deck Verified badge shortly before the update’s release, Found PCGamesN that it doesn’t run particularly well on the handheld and has frame rate issues. The biggest part of the update is probably the removal of the Bethesda launcher for Steam Deck, which Multiple outlets reported made it difficult to update graphical settings (it seems to affect Steam Deck OLED users much more than original Deck owners). Therefore, players were stuck at default settings, causing the game to crash.

If you’re playing on a regular PC, you’ll still get the launcher to adjust graphics settings. So the removal was likely a step to help the game get Steam Deck verified. Regardless, players have reported that mods broke after the update, which is common with large game updates; the creators of the gigantic community-driven Fallout: London Extension also said that the Next generation improvements “sucked [them] above” and forced them to postpone their release.

I have installed this Fallout 4 I updated and launched my old save file on my desktop PC and the game ran fine. I managed to take out a group of super mutants that had infiltrated a local hospital after taking some time to get used to the control scheme again. I played at 1440p with ultra-high settings enabled (it’s an older game, so it runs quite well even on a PC with less modern specs), and while I couldn’t confirm the frame rate, the animations were smooth for the most part, with the occasional stutter when turning the VAT system on and off and in combat. So people who have never played before Fallout 4If you don’t have a Steam deck and have never installed mods, you probably won’t notice any problems and will have a lot of fun exploring post-apocalyptic Boston.

However, if potential players want to try something older than Fallout 4 – and according to Steam charts and sites like SteamDB, this is certainly the case – they will experience the games in an unfortunate state, with no indication that this will be the case. Let’s just be thankful that Steam has a reasonable refund policy.