After five years of development, months of delays, and growing fan anticipation, Fallout: London, the ambitious, expansion-sized fan project for Fallout 4, will finally be released tomorrow.
In a somewhat cryptic but wholly appropriate message on the game’s Discord, Team FOLON’s lead project manager Dean Carter shared a track from the game’s soundtrack titled “I Just Can’t Wait (For Tomorrow).” The song, which is an original track written for the game, was accompanied by a caption reading, “Stay safe and remember. Mind the gap.”
Though fans seemed skeptical that the message was meant to convey the game’s imminent release, Carter tells Inverse that, “Unless nuclear war happens, yes,” July 25 will be the day Fallout: London finally drops.
Starting development in 2019, the gargantuan mod is basically a brand-new Fallout game set in a post-apocalyptic version of the English sprawl. The game will be fans’ first look at how Europe was affected by global nuclear war, even if series director Todd Howard isn’t interested in how those events unfolded overseas. Dozens of industry professionals and veterans, modders, hobbyists, and game enthusiasts from around the world came together to push this fan expansion to the finish line, and the results look exquisite.
The project isn’t your typical fan-made mod but a full-on expansion. The game’s post-apocalyptic version of London was built from the ground up, with Team FOLON estimating it’s the size of Fallout 4’s Commonwealth and the Far Harbor DLC combined. The mod will also feature a brand new main quest, dozens of side quests, characters, factions, weapons, music, art assets, and original voice acting from big-name actors Neil Newbon (Baldur’s Gate 3, Warframe), several former Doctor Whos, and even a former U.K. Speaker Of The House.
Fallout: London is essentially the new Fallout game that thousands of players were clamoring for, particularly after the successful Amazon Prime television series earlier this year. The project gained so much mainstream attention, that Team FOLON struck a deal with CD Projekt RED’s digital storefront GOG.com to host the mod as a proper release.
Had things gone Team FOLON’s way, players would have been playing the game on April 23, coinciding with St. George’s Day. But just a few days before launch, Bethesda Game Studios announced it would release a next-gen update for Fallout 4. While the update was ideal for those looking to visit the vanilla version of the 2015 role-playing game, the update would break all mods, including Fallout: London. Rather than release a product that would break just days after its release, Team FOLON delayed the game indefinitely.
Ultimately, the team decided to forego making the mod compatible with the next-gen update. To play Fallout: London, players must revert their copy of Fallout 4 with all of its DLC, to a pre-updated version of the game. With that decision, Team FOLON said the game’s release was “in sight.”
After a few social media teases, it’s good to see Fallout: London finally get a proper release. It has been a long time since a fan project in gaming has received this level of attention. But considering the scale of this passion project, it is very well deserved.
If you’re looking to play Fallout: London, on release day, you’re in luck. The GOG store currently has Fallout 4’s Game of the Year edition on sale for just $16. As a bonus, those who purchase the game on GOG can disable auto-updates, and rollback the version of the game with ease using the store’s dedicated installer GOG Galaxy, preventing the mod from unintentionally breaking.
