I’ve dipped in and out of Fallout 4 more times than I can count over the years. It’s one of those games I always mean to properly sit down and finish, only to get distracted building a slightly wonky settlement, hoarding junk like it’s going out of fashion, or wandering off in completely the wrong direction because something interesting popped up or exploded on the horizon. So when Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition landed on PC, I was curious. Not so much because I needed an excuse to go back to it, but more because I wanted to see if this was finally the version that pulled everything together into one proper, polished package.
At its core, this is still Fallout 4. You step out of Vault 111 into a ruined Boston, pick a direction, and just see what happens. It very quickly turns into a wander-off-and-pick-up-every-bloody-thing-em-up (it’ll catch on), where you set off with a plan and five minutes later you’re knee deep in desk fans, duct tape, and a side quest you didn’t even realise you’d started. That loop is still as compelling as it ever was; it doesn’t take long before you’re completely off track doing something you absolutely didn’t plan to do, and somehow enjoying it more than whatever the main quest was asking of you.
What the Anniversary Edition does is bundle pretty much everything together. You get all of the major expansions like Far Harbor and Nuka-World, along with the various workshop add-ons and a huge amount of Creation content thrown in on top. There’s a ridiculous amount here, but it’s worth saying that a lot of this isn’t new to the world of Fallout. Much of the DLC was released and reviewed here individually years ago, so this isn’t a case of discovering brand new content. What this does do though is bring it all together in one place and ready to find from minute 1, which makes it feel far more complete than jumping in and out of separate add-ons ever did.
After the December patches, at least all of this now works properly. Early issues with missing content and broken saves seem to have been sorted, and the Creations menu is far easier to deal with than it was at launch. It finally feels like a complete package rather than something you’re constantly having to wrestle with. That said, the way all this extra content fits into the game is still a bit hit and miss. Some of it blends in nicely, but quite a lot of it feels like what it is: add-ons. You’ll occasionally pick up a quest or a weapon that feels slightly out of place, like it’s been dropped in from a different version of the game. It doesn’t ruin anything, and there’s some very cool stuff to get stuck into, but it does make things feel a little uneven at times.
On the technical side, things are definitely in a better place now than they were in November. I ran into far fewer crashes than I expected from the very public reactions to launch day, and performance in general feels more stable. It’s not perfect though and you still get the usual Bethesda quirks: the odd visual glitch, slightly awkward animations, and the occasional moment where something just behaves in a way it probably shouldn’t. Nothing game-breaking, just occasional classic Bethesda open world jank.
Mods are still the biggest sticking point on PC though. If you’re playing vanilla, you’ll likely have a fairly smooth time now. If you’ve got a heavily modded setup, things can still get a bit messy. Some mods have been updated, others haven’t, and getting everything working nicely together again can take a bit of effort. Unfortunately though this isn’t entirely a Bethesda issue – some mods just need a bit of an update, and those that have been abandoned for a bit of a time might just cause a few weird outcome.
When everything is working, though, Fallout 4 is still brilliant, even ten years later. Wandering into a new area, stumbling across a story told through terminals and environmental details, or getting completely sidetracked building up a settlement still works just as well now as it did back in 2015. That sense of discovery hasn’t gone anywhere, and I’m still spending far too many hours of my time just aimlessly wandering around, stumbling across abandoned shacks, towns, all sorts.
What this edition really comes down to is convenience. If you’ve never played Fallout 4 before, this is an easy recommendation. You’re getting a huge amount of content in one place, and now that the worst of the issues have been patched, it’s a much smoother way to experience it. If you’ve already spent a lot of time with it over the last decade though, it’s a bit harder to justify. There isn’t really anything here that fundamentally changes the experience. It’s more Fallout 4, just packaged differently and running a bit more reliably than it did a month ago. Pricing is odd though… the Steam page suggests you save almost £50 by buying this, as it includes loads of DLC and the season pass. Except the season pass includes all of the DLC, so you’re essentially getting everything twice. That saving is, therefore, closer to £25, and it all gets a little confusing from there.
But despite that, I enjoyed going back to it. I always do, and probably always will, much like my time with Skyrim really. But if you were hoping to find something new, over and above what you’ve already been exploring for the past few years, this isn’t it. If however you’re happy to overlook a few lingering quirks and just want a massive open world RPG to get lost in, especially if it’s somehow passed you by for all this time, it’s easy to recommend.
Reviewed on PC
