Tired of the brown barren wasteland aesthetic that has been continually featured in the series thus far, a Fallout 4 fan has modded their game to bring beautiful lush forests to their post-nuclear apocalypse experience. The next installment in the Fallout franchise seems far from the studio’s mind, as Bethesda Game Studios is currently focusing on the development of its newest IP, Starfield, and afterwards moving on to The Elder Scrolls VI.
Released in 2015, Bethesda’s open world action role-playing title Fallout 4 remains popular with fans thanks to its dedicated modding community, allowing players to download custom mods that help keep the game fresh and interesting. Although mods for games are usually only accessible to PC players, Bethesda has taken extra steps to provide mod access to console players on Xbox and PlayStation.
While Bethesda has chosen a predominately brown palette with sparse green plant life for its environments in the Fallout series, one Fallout 4 fan craving the return of nature decided to bring it back to the Commonwealth, with the help of mods. Reddit user criteriaz showed off a screenshot of their dedicated efforts in turning their wasteland into beautiful lush forests, having used seven different mods in order to achieve the level of greenery necessary to satisfy the foliage enthusiast. Their screenshot features the Red Rocket truck stop, one of the most recognizable locations in the game, almost overwhelmed by the overgrowth of greenery. This is a stark contrast to how the truck stop looks in the regular game, where there are barely any plants or grass surrounding the building, save for a few dead trees and brown shrubbery.
Although installing a large amount of mods has been known to cause issues to game stability, criteriaz noted that their game seemed to run perfectly fine on their Xbox One, having easily downloaded the seven mods from Fallout 4’s home screen. Many Redditors chimed in to express their awe at the screenshot, adding that they hope Bethesda will put some focus on adding greenery and forests to future Fallout titles, instead of opting for the incredibly brown and barren landscapes that the previous installments have heavily featured. While there have been environments with abundant green plant life, these were a part of Vault-Tec experiments in Fallout: New Vegas’ Vault 22, and Fallout 76’s Vault 94, with the greenery mostly found inside the Vaults and their entrances.
Criteriaz’s modded wasteland forest shows that a world post nuclear-apocalypse can still be incredibly beautiful, and even add an extra layer of terror to the gameplay, with the abundant plant life obscuring the player’s view of potential ghoul attacks. While the barren wasteland aesthetic has been a staple in the Fallout games, the amount of plant and foliage mods available show that there is definitely a demand for more greenery in the Fallout series.
Fallout 4 is available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4
Source: criteriaz/Reddit