It’s amazing how much a different setting can transform the Fallout experience. Whether it’s Fallout 3, 4, New Vegas, or the newly released Fallout: London mod, having new locations to explore with the beloved gameplay formula somehow manages to feel fresh every time.

When the nuclear bombs dropped, the entire planet changed and the retro futuristic world this universe calls home was brought to a standstill thanks to atomic devastation. No matter what country you belonged to, your apocalyptic fate was more or less the same.

Her Majesty’s Fallout

But countries all emerged from the ashes in different ways, in varying numbers, and adapted to this battered world. New Vegas, Boston, and the DC Capital Wasteland all come with different vibes, factions, characters, and stories for you to discover. That’s why, for me at least, the formula is still fresh even decades down the line.

Now we have London. Yes, it’s a mod, but after five years of development and support from GOG, it feels like a game all of its own that uses Fallout 4 as a loose foundation. It is a vast and uncompromising vision of Fallout in the British capital, laden with the political satire and over-the-top environmental design you’d expect from an official entry.

So far, it explores more predictable British clichés instead of something more interesting, but that’s enough to get me in the door. Looking at the state of things, I bet Android Thatcher was in charge when bombs dropped, and now there isn’t a local council around to take any of the bins out.

It all begins with you being experimented on beneath London Bridge station by the usual rabble of scientists and secret operatives. That is until a rebel group blows the walls down and give you a chance to escape. You don’t stumble across them on your way to the surface, but I bet my bottom dollar they’ll play a major role in the main quest.As will the agents that performed experiments on you in the first place, since you are obviously more than a normal survivor.

There Is No Way Tube Trains Would Still Run After A Nuclear Apocalypse

I pick up my “ATTA-boy”, which is a lot closer to the original Fallout games’ Pip-Boy design, appearing as a VHS tape covered in buttons and dials that attaches to your belt instead of locking around your wrist. Then I grab the tube, it crashes, and the capital is my oyster.

Having lived in London before and within the UK for my entire life, I quickly found myself looking around and analysing every little detail I could find. London Bridge station was filled with a selection of coffee shops, cake stations, and newsagents, with only a dozen or so stalls for tickets and a duo of escalators. Way smaller than the real thing (true to Bethesda’s approach), but covered in enough cool iconography for me to feel at home. Well, if my home was destroyed by nuclear weapons.

Outside is an absolute tip, but it’s quintessential London. I passed double-decker buses, red phone boxes, the London Bridge, and graffiti unironically dedicated to the Royal Family for some reason. It’s sickeningly Blighty-coded, but I can understand why. If the United States was obsessed with its own garish Americana, it only makes sense for Britain to lean into cultural cliché equally. A vision of London where everyone drinks tea, has terrible teeth, and walks up the apple and pears before the bobbies come knocking. Throw in some ghouls and there’s Fallout: London.

That’s the thing with this series; you think its magic is lost until a new setting is thrown into the mix, and suddenly you’re presented with a fresh interpretation of a familiar place. We’ve seen a destroyed London in games before, but never like this, and never had we seen New Vegas or Washington D.C. presented in such a beautiful way. Fallout makes it possible, so I hope the future holds more surprises like this.

5 Images 5 Images Close

Your Rating

close 10 stars 9 stars 8 stars 7 stars 6 stars 5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star Rate Now 0/10

Your comment has not been saved

Like Follow Followed

Fallout 3

Action RPG Systems Released October 28, 2008 ESRB M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs Developer(s) Bethesda Game Studios Publisher(s) Bethesda Softworks Engine Gamebryo Franchise Fallout
Where to play Close

WHERE TO PLAY

SUBSCRIPTION
DIGITAL
PHYSICAL

Fallout 3 takes place in a ruined area around Washington D.C. two hundred years after the Great War. In a game met with critical acclaim, you must traverse this wasteland looking for your father, while solving the mystery of his disappearance.

Powered by Expand Collapse