It’s no secret Bethesda games live and die based on the strength of their mods. Fallout 4 is no different, but with almost a decade of mods it can be hard to decide where to begin.
Whether you’re just getting into Fallout 4 as a result of the show or returning to the Commonwealth to try out the new update, look no further than this list to get you started. As someone with a shameful amount of playtime in Fallout 4, I’ve selected the best of the thousands of mods available. Of course, given the way Bethesda modding goes, you’ll doubtlessly spiral into a list of hundreds of mods, but the ones listed below will provide the most solid foundation you could ask for.
Top 7 best mods for Fallout 4
These are the seven most essential Fallout 4 mods, presented in no particular order. If you’re sick of sci-fi, consider checking out our recommended Skyrim mods as well once you’re done.
Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch
The community patch should always be the first stop for modding any Bethesda game you care to name, and Fallout 4 is no exception. Fallout 4‘s Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch is absolutely indispensable, touching every aspect of the game to fix hundreds of bugs with quests, gameplay, NPCs, text errors, and more. Its changelog alone would take the better part of an hour to read through, but at the same time it’s engineered to be compatible with any other mod you could possibly be using.
This mod is from the same team behind the Unofficial Patches for Skyrim and Oblivion, meaning the mod’s authors probably have more experience in the guts of the Creation Engine than anyone save Bethesda itself. You likely won’t even notice its impact as you play the game, but that’s by design—just remember it’s the only thing keeping you from tripping on a desk fan stuck in the ground and getting thrown into the stratosphere by the bugged-out physics engine. It’s also one of the only mods that’s been updated for Fallout 4‘s next-gen version already, meaning trying to install it won’t break your game.
Tales from the Commonwealth
Quest mods abound on Fallout 4‘s Nexus Mods subsection, but by far the best of these is Tales from the Commonwealth, which doesn’t content itself with adding just a single quest. Rather, as the name implies, the entire Commonwealth is peppered with bite-sized, tightly-written stories about the game’s setting and the people who live in it, all of which slots perfectly into the world of the base game. Whether you’re helping a sniper with extreme social anxiety be elected President by a group of malfunctioning robots or lending some muscle to an old-money Ghoul still competing for her inheritance 200 years later, all kinds of bizarre adventures are waiting around every corner.
Tales also adds three new companions, each of whom feels infinitely more layered than any of the base game’s offerings and masterfully avoids the usual pitfalls of modded companions (i.e. they actually wear clothes and act like real people). This mod’s author, Kris Takahashi, later went on to join Bethesda as a quest designer on Starfield—you can’t really get a more glowing endorsement than that.
Sim Settlements
If you like looking at Fallout 4‘s settlements but not so much building them yourself, Sim Settlements is the solution for you. This complete overhaul to the tacked-on settlement system allows you to take a hands-off approach, letting your settlers build up and expand your towns of their own volition. Much like The Sims, the degree of autonomy is entirely customizable, so you can simply enjoy the mod’s quality of life changes or simply kick back and let the peons do the work for you.
Either way, it helps immensely with the general lack of established towns in Fallout 4. Questing for a bit and then returning to see how my settlers have built up Sanctuary on my return is almost as good as stumbling across a new and unknown town in the wilderness.
Start Me Up
The universal complaint with Fallout 3 was its intro: long, unwieldy and an absolute pain to play through every time you wanted to start a new character. Naturally, Bethesda listened to this criticism and made Fallout 4‘s intro even longer. Fortunately, you no longer have to suffer through it with Start Me Up, an evolution of the “Alternate Start” mods that found popularity in Skyrim‘s modding scene.
After creating your character, you can choose a background, starting gear, starting location and more to carve out your own story and allow you to truly be whoever you want to be—no longer are you locked into the single choice of Generic Pre-War Soldier or Generic Pre-War Lawyer. Perhaps even more impressively, the mod goes through and strips all references to the player character being a Vault dweller from before the war from dialogue, thus maintaining immersion for your chosen path. On a second playthrough and beyond, this mod is invaluable.
Everyone’s Best Friend
This may be a simple tweak, but it’s an absolute no-brainer. Everyone’s Best Friend allows you to use Dogmeat in conjunction with a human companion, an option from Fallout 3 and New Vegas that’s bafflingly absent in Fallout 4. As befitting its simplicity, Everyone’s Best Friend works flawlessly, and you no longer have to worry about leaving your prize pooch behind every time you want to rack up some romance points.
Wattz Laser Gun
As with quest mods, weapon mods are myriad, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a cooler one than the Wattz Laser Gun. This is a classic weapon from the first two Fallout games brought back in stunning form, further expanding the pitifully small pool of energy weapons available by default in Fallout 4. Something about the caution stripes and the retro-styled ammo counter just screams “classic Fallout” to me, even disregarding the fact that this gun literally is from classic Fallout.
As if that’s not enough, there are a few unique variants to find as well in short quests, similar to the official Creation Club quests but free. Honestly, that slick reload animation is worth the download all on its own.
Point Lookout
Capping off our list is a nice hit of nostalgia. No, you’re not getting deja vu—Fallout 4: Point Lookout is exactly what you think it is; Fallout 3‘s Point Lookout DLC painstakingly recreated in Fallout 4‘s engine. Just like you did back in 2009, you can step on a riverboat to Point Lookout, Maryland and find yourself lost in a mist-shrouded swamp of death, deceit and dark secrets. It’s all wonderfully gloomy, and the improved visuals of Fallout 4‘s engine and the entirely remade assets only make it all the more unsettling. It’s like Far Harbor with more cannibalism, and it’s amazing. Unfortunately, the storyline is unchanged and does not acknowledge the years that have passed between 3 and 4, so just think of it as an alternate universe of sorts.
No Fallout 4 game is complete without these essential mods, but you’ll unfortunately have to wait for the majority of them to be converted to the new 1.36 patch, which overhauled the game but broke most mods in the process. If you’re desperate to revisit Point Lookout, however, you can always revert your Fallout 4 installation to previous version.
