Unexpected Fallout 4 Update Throws Fallout London Project into Disarray
Dean Carter, the project lead for Fallout London, expressed his frustration in a brief BBC interview, stating that Bethesda provided no advance notice about Fallout 4’s next-gen update, which he says “has, for a lack of a better term, screwed us over.”
The “DLC-sized” mod, designed to immerse Fallout 4 players in a post-nuclear London, initially planned its release for April 23. Carter explains, “It was a day that would work well for us, being after the series launch and coinciding with the in-game start date on St George’s Day.”
However, Fallout London had to delay its release when Bethesda announced a next-gen update for Fallout 4 set for April 25. Carter speculates, “I don’t want to say ‘suspect’ because that makes it sound malicious. But if you were a big corporation and there was a fantastic [Fallout TV] series that just came out, you’d think you’d align it and have the big update ready on the same day the series premieres,” Carter argues. “I don’t think it’s malicious, but it seems like a very arbitrary date for them to drop.”
The Fallout 4 script extender will be the casualty of the next-gen update, requiring the Fallout London team to observe the situation before adjusting the framework to ensure compatibility. These challenges led to the indefinite delay of Fallout London’s release date.
Carter shared in a video the jeopardy their years of work face with the new update. “We’ve just been tweaking and testing to get things as stable as we can for you all in time for that release. But with the new update dropping just 48 hours later, the past four years of our work stand to just simply break.”
Following the video, numerous fans eager to explore a Fallout location set outside the United States expressed their frustration towards Bethesda. While Carter stresses he didn’t intend for the publisher to bear the brunt of this, he notes it’s “inevitable when there’s that lack of communication. So I just wish that they had a conversation with us.” It’s not necessarily “inevitable” for a publisher to face significant backlash for not closely collaborating with an unofficial mod. However, given Fallout London’s impact, the reaction isn’t entirely unexpected.

Bethesda offers the verified creator program, allowing creators to earn royalties from their work—though some see this as a way to exploit the modding community. Fallout London operates outside this framework as an unofficial Fallout 4 mod. It’s partly due to this that the team “had zero correspondence with Bethesda.” Carter remains puzzled as to why the team wasn’t approached to sign an NDA to be informed about ongoing developments, rather than being “blindsided us out of nowhere.” While this approach might have addressed Fallout London’s issues, for a large company to engage with an independent modding team in this manner would be unprecedented.
“I do understand that there is always going to be a hesitancy about working with the community because we’re not industry professionals,” Carter explains. “But there are schemes where they do work with community members, so why isn’t that being done?”
Carter argues that the team has “out-performed some of the Fallout 76 announcements … You’d think that they’d have at least had a conversation to just be like, ‘Look, you guys are clearly at least notable, you’re not official, but let’s make sure that we don’t ruin this for the fans.'”
I can empathize with Fallout London’s frustration. It’s been a monumental effort to bring this mod to the brink of release after nearly four years. This situation appears to be a result of miscommunication rather than any malicious intent from the company. There’s no update on Fallout London’s release date yet, but there’s hope for a day-one fix, so perhaps all is not lost.