I’ve been following Fallout London for a good while during its development. I wasn’t deep into it, but I checked up on it occasionally. When it finally released, I was as excited as if it was a new Fallout game coming out. This is one of those mods that’s more than just a weapon mod or a quest mod, this mod is practically a whole game. Any criticisms I may have with this mod come with the caveat that I have mad respect for this team being able to work together to pull this fan project off.

Being a fan made game, there’s a couple bumps in getting it running. I do feel bad for the team, they were ready to release the game earlier, but Bethesda dropped the Next-Gen update on us and threw a wrench in their works. It must’ve been too time intensive to update the whole mod to next gen, so you will have to play in the downgraded Fallout 4 for London to run. I was never a resolution snob, so it’s no skin off my nose. There’re also a few extra mods I had to install to fix some crashes, namely Buffout 4 and Weapon Debris Fix. Then I had to troubleshoot some other mods that caused crashes (avoid the Visible Weapons mod and the Atomic Beauties CBBE mod). Once that was all sorted the game ran great. There were still a few hiccups that I had to deal with, but nothing game breaking, mostly just quests bugging out and having to reload or abandon them. One that was buggy was when I was helping a German submarine whose AI was based on Immanuel Kant.

Fallout London is built off the base game of Fallout 4. That means the shooting feels good and responsive. I was wondering if London would include the settlement system. They do have a few settlement areas where you can build, but nowhere near as many as Fallout 4. I honestly prefer that, having just a few key settlements instead of 30. I just chose one and built a small trailer to live out of and store my stuff. It does have one disadvantage in that finding locations with a weapons or armor workbench is tougher in London vs Boston. London does bring back the classic dialogue system that allows for skill checks using more than just your charisma score. There’s also a lot of small custom animations added to London. Things like climbing ladders that make the journey feel more connected vs just fading out every time you climb a ladder.

While there’s not much change in the gameplay basics, Fallout London does structure it differently than Fallout 4. This game is more about the journey and not instant gratification. I didn’t come across one suit of power armor during my whole playthrough. I wasn’t looking for it, I was never a power armor player, but it’s a far cry from Fallout 4 handing you a full set at the beginning. I spent a good first chunk of the game just trying to find a firearm. There’s a very intentional melee focus to the early game and until you get a set of armor, enemies with guns are hard to take down. It made the game feel more weighty and intense, because I had to plan my paths and decide who to engage.

I did have a few non-related mods installed. Namely a bunch of mods that added WWII guns and clothing to the game. After gaining a few levels, collecting some scrap, and finding a crafting bench I was able to load up my character with some firepower and the gameplay evened out. I always like to create a little theme for my player characters in Fallout. For Fallout London, I was an American paratrooper that somehow ended up in England. Running across London with my M1 Garand, Colt 1911, and Tommy Gun it almost felt like I was playing a Medal of Honor game at some points. I did try a few of the guns added by the mod, like the Webley, Bren, Sten, and Enfield. They all look and feel good. There’s not a lot of plasma or laser weapons in London.

This is the first Fallout game outside the US, meaning there’s a big shift in the established lore. There’re some things that have a counterpart in London, mainly in the enemy types. There’s London versions of Deathclaws, Yao Guia, molerats, and super mutants. They are distinct enough from their American counterparts, but they serve similar gameplay functions. There aren’t Vault-Tec vaults in London, instead there’s government-built Pindar bunkers. London feels much more grounded vs the actual Fallout games. Not every pre-war company was ludicrously malicious. A lot of the city is still somewhat functioning with a semblance of government. I never got a clear idea how London went nuclear. There’s a power plant outside of the city that melted down, but there’s also talk about bombs hitting the city. The tone isn’t as extremely campy as Fallout 4. The moments of spookiness in this game are effective, especially in the early game. There’s a lot of old, abandoned buildings that felt oppressively ominous as I discovered a sad scene. One that stuck with me was a wall of missing people. The only thing that broke my suspension of disbelief was the shipping company Vauluzon, a Vault-Tec version of Amazon. I’d be curious to learn the decision behind its inclusion, as Amazon feels too modern for a Fallout game.

Being this game isn’t set in America, there’s not that laser focus on 1950s Americana & Sci-Fi. Instead, London pulls from several eras of British culture, from the medieval times to the 1980s. Everything about this game, from the story to the humor to the world building, is extremely English. I enjoyed seeing an uncut English game. I had to stop and look up a few terms, like ‘bagsy’ or ‘off-license’. There were references to British culture everywhere. I caught some of the popular ones, like James Bond, Dr. Who, and Monty Python, but I’m sure there’s plenty I missed. There’s old English lore included in the form of Dryads and the Green Man. One thing London has done better than any other Fallout game is the raider gangs. The regular, Mad Max-esque, raiders are football hooligans. Then there’s the Beefeaters. They wear the classic uniform and, in a clever move, they’re cannibals. The Industrialists hang out at industrial sites and are fashioned after Industrial Revolution robber barons. My favorite raider gang are the ones who control London’s ships, the Jack Tars. They are fashioned as early 1800s sailors who talk like pirates. They were a fun, unique raider gang I enjoyed running into and I’ll remember them longer than I will the Jackals or the Gunners.

There’s plenty of friendly factions in London as well. The one you’ll encounter the first and most often are the Tommies. They are the peace-keeping force in London, similar to the NCR. They are heavily inspired by WWI soldiers. You can join the Vagabonds, which are post-apocalyptic Peaky Blinders. Camden has the Pistols, who are punk rockers. The Roundels are a gang of mods. There’s also the 5th Column, who when I first encountered them, I assumed they were Communists. They’re actually the local fascist faction. One faction that you don’t meet until late game is Camelot. As you can guess from the name, they fashion themselves after King Arthur’s knights. Finally, there’s the Gentry, the foppish ruling class who live in the walled off district of Westminster. In general, it feels like there’s more factions and people in London than other Fallout games.

A new race that’s unique to London is the Thamesfolk. They are Lovecraftian fishpeople who can survive the deadly radiation of the Thames. They are the first group of people you go searching for, and everyone else asks why you’d want to meet the Thamesfolk. A mod adding in a new race to an established IP is always a dicey move. The last mod of this size for Fallout that I recall is the Frontier. They brought in the Trochili lizard people and, like most of that mod, they weren’t great. The Thamesfolk mostly serve as the starting town faction, then just show up occasionally as raider NPCs. They are just honest folk who happen to look like the creature from the Black Lagoon. They fit in the world much better.

Speaking of the Frontier, it is fun to compare the two game sized mods against each other. Fallout London has better writing by leaps and bounds. There’s no “edgy teenage boy” dialogue or objectional content. I do think the Frontier was more technically impressive. They created drivable cars and had a mastery of the New Vegas engine. Fallout: London is much more fun to explore.

The city of London is probably one of my favorite places to explore in Fallout, tied maybe with 76’s West Virginia. London has millennia of history, so it was fun to go from exploring the Tower of London, to the Jack the Ripper Museum, to the HMS Belfast, to the MI6 Building. Compared to Boston, I was able to recognize a lot of the landmarks. I didn’t get to visit Buckingham Palace, but I remember a press release mentioning the FOLON team cut out a feral ghoul Queen Elizabeth after her death, so maybe that’s why Buckingham Palace was locked off. There were a lot of marked buildings that were locked off, but I think they must’ve been part of quests I didn’t complete. The place I was hoping would be included that wasn’t was 22B Baker Street. And outside of the famous landmark locations, just walking around you can feel the care put into the world and just the age of the city. Unfortunately, that also leads to a lot of long loading screens when traveling between districts. And the interior spaces don't fare as well. They lack solid level design. Most of the overworld of London is easy to navigate, but a lot of the interior spaces are cramped and not laid out for easy navigation. I got lost in several buildings and used the no clip command to skip through the level. My guess is they were balancing game design and realistic layouts, but they tilted the scales too far towards realism.

There’s three radio stations added to your Pip-Boy. One plays the same music as Diamond City Radio but has two ghoul DJs. There’s a generic classical music channel. The channel I liked best, the Mend, played a lot of classic British music and a few original songs. I’m surprised Martin Purvis wasn’t featured in this mod. I believe he’s English, but maybe his experience with New California and Frontier scared him off mod projects.

The story is where a mod like this can live and die. Both the Frontier & New California were undone by stories that couldn’t reach the finish line. Fallout London has the best plot of the mods I’ve played. You wake up in a strange lab that is attacked by some ruffians. After being taunted by a shadowy man, you escape the lab and end up lost in London with a goal of tracking down whoever owned that lab with the hopes they can tell you who you are. You bum around London helping folks out and investigating the mysterious organization, Angel. You pick up some companions along the way that are all well written, there’s Archie the Dickensian street orphan, Jack the dull boxer, Arthur the foppish ghoul, and Kiera the post-apocalyptic Tomb Raider that I came across. As you track down the mysterious leader of Angel, you end up allying yourself with a faction that wants to topple the Gentry. This is where the story stumbles a bit. You can either side with the 5th Column or Camelot. Up to this point, Camelot has never been encountered in the story and you’d only find their outpost if you decide to explore the south. The 5th Column you’ve probably ran into on the streets, but only as NPCs who have no missions or dialogue with you. You must immediately commit to one after talking with one member. There’s no chance to go back to the Vagabonds or any other group you’ve already been working with to have them help. I chose Camelot, because 1. They were fun knights 2. They weren’t Nazis. You fight through Westminster with the knights of Camelot and break into Parliament, which has been locked down previously.

Spoilers for the ending, so skip to ‘All in all’ to avoid them. You break into the House of Commons to find it’s full of gentry men that all look like you. Now up till now, when fighting Angel forces, they often have blue skinned abominations fighting with them called “blank clones”. Here is where we find out the successful clones are of one pre-war man, Smythe, who’s been secretly running the city from behind closed doors. You were a clone meant to replace the head Smythe, but your training process was interrupted. This is all explained by the head Smythe in a final showdown inside of Big Ben. Thanks to my personal roleplaying it was a fun dichotomy. Symthe was the well-dressed, well-spoken Englishman. I was the American GI with blood on my sleeve and a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. The cloning storyline could’ve easily went sideways, but the game handles it well. They don’t get overly detailed about it and you aren’t a clone of a previous Fallout protagonist. The reveal where everyone in Parliament is just me was a twist that got me. The clone twist had the sensibilities of a 70s British Sci-Fi show. And it leads to a final fight inside Big Ben with umbrellas, a little silly, but not suspension of disbelief breaking.

All in all, Fallout London knocks it out of the park, once you get it running right. The quests are fun and engaging, the story is well written, the city is fun to explore. You get practically a full Fallout game for free. While the level design is wanting, the FOLON team understood character progression, better than Bethesda even. If you’ve got Fallout 4 and are an Anglophile, I can heartily recommend this game. Exploring Fallout’s London is what pushed me to finally planning a real-life trip there, fingers crossed.