When it rains, it pours, and at this point, Bethesda Land may as well be flooded. Fallout 4 is broken again, everyone, and no one can think of any real good reason why. In case you missed it, Todd Howard announced an Anniversary Edition for the role-playing game to celebrate its tenth anniversary. This isnât out of left field for the company â see Skyrim Anniversary Edition â but also, memes aside, must Bethesda continue to trot out its older games, repackaging and reselling them for no other reason than that people will buy them regardless?
Apparently so. The whole reason for this edition is to introduce Fallout 4 to the Nintendo Switch 2 â it wonât actually launch for the platform until next year, but I digress. For those who have yet to experience one of the most controversial entries in the franchise (before Fallout 76 came around, of course), itâs not the worst deal. The base game with all add-ons and expansions alongside more than 150 Creations from the Creation Store? Pretty solid package overall, but enough to warrant spending $59.99 on PC, Xbox or PlayStation after all these years? I would say not (and I spent full price on the base game and expansion pass back in the day â yes, go ahead. Point and laugh).
Hereâs where things get confusing. If you already own Fallout 4 but not the DLC, you can purchase the Anniversary Upgrade for $39.99 and receive all of that content alongside the Creations Bundle, which contains the aforementioned 150+ Creations. If you own Fallout 4 Game of the Year Edition, then the Creations Bundle will cost $19.99. Got it? Good.
So whatâs the problem? Well, even if you didnât care for the Anniversary Edition and were content to continue playing Fallout 4 with your current set of mods, thereâs a mandatory update to download. To no oneâs surprise, this breaks your mods. It would be one thing if this were a new update with new content â at least you could somewhat justify having to update mods to work with the new version number. But no, this update simply changes the Creations menu and makes it so that the hit chance for VATS is the same across all platforms. Oh, and if you were having fun with the Penetrator perk targeting enemies through walls, thatâs been fixed.
The problem is that the update is causing severe issues, from crashes and performance problems to outright breaking the textures. Even if you arenât someone with hundreds of mods and extensive edits to tailor the experience to your liking, itâs just a bad look, especially for a game thatâs this old and on its tenth anniversary, no less. You would think that Bethesda would learn its lesson from the Next-Gen Update, which launched with its own issues while also breaking mods, but you would be wrong.
Even more hilarious is that the Creations Bundle, the actual content thatâs meant to justify the Anniversary Editionâs existence, doesnât work properly. Currently rated âMostly Negativeâ on Steam, with only 23 percent of the 341 reviews approving this debacle, it also results in numerous crashes. Many who purchased the bundle can see it in their list of add-ons, but they canât install it. Others get a never-ending initialisation process before the game crashes. Thatâs not even accounting for a fresh range of new bugs, particularly for those first-time players, which is who this edition was geared towards in the first place.
The worst part about all this? The actual content in the Creations Bundle isnât even all that appealing, unless you really want Dogmeat to look like a different breed or for your Power Armor and Pip-Boy to have different colors. You know, stuff that free mods are capable of.
Bethesda has at least recognized the reason for players not being able to access the Creations Bundle after purchasing it, and is working on a fix. Thereâs no ETA currently, but fingers crossed that itâs fixed by the time this is live.
Itâs just so exasperating to be a fan of Bethesda, regardless of how small. Say what you will about Starfield and how excellent or disappointing it was, but its post-launch support in 2025 has been absolutely nonexistent, and that was after dropping the drek that was Shattered Space last year. When the Fallout TV show premiered last year, it had the chance to appeal to millions of potential new players with the Next-Gen Update, which had already seen delays. Lo and behold, it launched and caused issues for everyone, resulting in a horrible first impression.
I could go on about the issues with Fallout 76, which has thankfully seen improvements through the years courtesy of its dedicated development team. And while game development is a long and arduous process, seeing Bethesda re-release Fallout 4 while admitting that The Elder Scrolls 6 is still a long way off, over seven years since its first announcement, is truly something. And to emphasise once again, Fallout 4 is a ten-year-old game that was already outclassed by so much else back in 2015. What are we even doing here?
You could argue that this new edition is just a bit of marketing to pull in anyone interested in the Fallout TV showâs second season. And thatâs fair play, even if a brand new Fallout game or the long-rumored Fallout 3 remaster would have been better. The problem is that even if youâre not the target audience, youâre dragged into this vortex of nonsense, either because Bethesda doesnât have the resources to test things properly or couldnât be bothered to do so. Either looks bad, considering how much experience it should have with its own engine by now, especially when this update does little else besides updating a paid mods menu and some VATS mechanics.
In a way, itâs ironic. The modders who helped keep Fallout 4 alive all this time with their Creations are the ones who are disregarded, time and time again, with these updates. And as much as Bethesda wants to encourage them to get paid for their work through the Creation Store, itâs all pointless if those buying the Creations Bundle canât even use it. Or if it makes their experience technically worse. Again, you would think all this is obvious by now, but apparently not.
I would say itâs stuff like this that really makes me doubt any future Bethesda projects, and encourages me to stay away. But honestly, with the years-long gap between releases, issues like this will just be swept under the rug when it comes time to build hype. The Elder Scrolls 6 could get no new footage and maybe an official title, and that would be enough to suffice for the next few years. I would be surprised if anyone even remembers these issues by then.
Hearing Todd Howard reveal that the team is working on even more for the Fallout franchise should have been the main reason to celebrate Fallout Day. Despite his desire not to announce anything too far in advance â which is hilarious when you look at Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 â it could have been the perfect occasion to tease something, anything for the future. Maybe even tease that the Fallout 3 remaster is real. Instead, weâre back to Fallout 4, yet again, and reminded once more of why you should never get excited for anything Fallout-related.
Oh well. At least Season 2 of the show should be good and crash far less.
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