Xbox One owners can now download mods for Fallout 4. There are 885 available already and the servers for the game’s creators at Bethesda seem to be struggling to keep up . The most mod for the game on Xbox One is a cheat menu that lets you add caps, stimpacks and more. That’s currently a little more popular than “Busty Enhanced Vanilla Body replacer.” There are cat mods and gun mods, too, of course.
To get the mods, you need to either go to the mod section on Bethesda.net or log into the game and check out the mod menu. You may run into error messages, since Bethesda seems to be getting hammered.
As long as the servers are working, you’ll be able to click on mods you’re interested in, read about them, download them and pick the order you want them to load. Bethesda will let you download up to 2GB worth of mods. That cheat menu one is just 117.3 KB. A mod called Re-Growth that changes the game’s foliage is 287.8MB.
The notes for Re-Growth hint at some of the limitations console owners are going to have with mods as they’re funneled through Bethesda’s website (emphasis added):
ReGrowth overhaul originated on PC, as most mods do. It’s a (fairly) popular flora mod, that originally aimed to “overgrow” the world. Unfortunately because of console limitation. the FULL version can’t be uploaded on Beth.net, however I was able to upload the “Flora” only version. This version of the mod will deliver mostly the same experience as the full version. For example, you’ll get the tree’s, flowers, grass, and other flora related textured, but you won’t get overgrown buildings, mossy roads, and vined walls. All in all, it’s the perfect balance for consoles. Both eyecandy, and functional.
Re-Growth has been downloaded 340 times. The cheat code one, which is called Cheat Menu (Portable Holotape Menu), has been downloaded 613 times. The big-breasts one has been downloaded 439 times.
That busty mod is the closest we’ve found to a nudity mod, which of course we looked for to see how permissive Bethesda was going to be. In an FAQ, the modder says:
Q: I haz nude mod?
A: No nude mods allowed. Be happy for mods on consoles at all.
We did find a mod that seems to let you kill kids, because that’s a thing, too. It’s usually justified as a desire to remove restrictions in order to enhance a game’s immersion, not some sicko fantasy to murder children.
There’s a mod to remove the borders in the Far Harbor DLC landmass. There’s one that gives you a gorilla companion. There’s one that lets you play as a ghoul.
We haven’t been able to test the mods on Xbox One, because our biggest Fallout-playing folks on staff don’t have the game on that console and/or aren’t near an Xbox One today, leaving me with a copy of the game on Microsoft’s console, no save file and no time to jump in and test (Bad timing meets division of labor: if there are any mods for the new Kirby game, I can check that!).
It doesn’t help that Bethesda.net has been struggling to keep with the demand. I had Fallout 4's mod menu loaded for all of 10 minutes and lost connection to the Bethesda server twice.
Hopefully the mods work. Cross fingers! It’s not clear how much testing the mods get and how well they’ll work with each other. Modder notes include suggestions about the order to load them for better performance.
If you use any, Achievements will be turned off. It’s only fair. Or something.
All these caveats and qualifications aside, it’s impressive to see even a fraction of the mods coming to a console game. It’s such a rare sight in the walled lands of non-PC gaming. It’s also exciting, because, if this works and if interesting enough mods can make it through Bethesda’s site, these mods are going to add a lot of life to the console versions of Fallout 4.
Who needs more DLC when you have this being added to the game?
Mod support for the PS4 version of Fallout 4 is slated for June. Many of the mods we checked already include indications that they’ll be released for Sony’s platform as well.
Here’s a waterfall of shots of more Xbox One Fallout 4 mods, captured from the console today as I scrolled through what is already available. Endless possibilities!