Bethesda Games Studios highly anticipated Fallout 4 is quickly approaching its November 10 release date, and the developer has revealed details about about its post-launch plans for the upcoming game, including its promise to release regular updates and modding tools.
“We’ll be doing regular free updates to the game, and like Skyrim, these will come with not just fixes, but new features,” Bethesda said in a blog post. “For Skyrim we added things like mounted combat, legendary mode, kill cams, visual enhancements and more. We’ll work with all of you to figure out what new things you’d love to see added to Fallout 4, whether they are small tweaks or new features.”
Free updates seem to be one of the ways some studios are setting themselves apart these days, such as CD Projekt RED’s recent release of a New Game+ mode for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
As Bethesda mentioned, it had released several patches with new content and features for Skyrim, most notably legendary mode, which allowed players to reset their skills so they could reach even higher levels on their character.
Not only do these types of free additions generate positive PR and some brand loyalty with fans, but they also help advertise the game long after the initial release excitement dies die. Bethesda even branded the DLC-complete version of Skyrim as “Skyrim: Legendary Edition,” which coincided with the release of legendary mode.
Modding tools
In its post, Bethesda also revealed more details about modding tools for Fallout 4, a hallmark of Bethesda games that allows fans to easily create their own mods using game assets.
“The most important thing in our games is the freedom you have to create your own experience, and modding is a big part of that.” Bethesda said. “Like all our previous games, we’ve made sure to keep Fallout 4 open and moddable at every step in development. Early next year we’ll release for free the new Creation Kit for the PC. This is the same tool we use in the studio. You’ll be able to create your own mods and share them with others.”
The studio also said that for the first time ever, fan-made mods will be coming to the console version of the game. This is great news for console players, as games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim have had the reputation that the only true way to play those games is on PC due to the hundreds or thousands of fan-made mods available.
Mods for Bethesda games run the gamut from ridiculously minor tweaks (one popular mod adds a single pastry to a location in Skyrim) to full expansions complete with custom game assets and voice acting.
Season Pass DLC
Finally, Bethesda revealed information about the downloadable content it has planned for Fallout 4, saying that the first planned DLC will be arriving early 2016. For the first time, the studio will also be offering a Season Pass option for players, which will allow them to pay upfront for all upcoming DLC.
“We’ve always done a lot of DLC for our games,” Bethesda said. “We love making them and you always ask us for more. To reward our most loyal fans, this time we’ll be offering a Season Pass that will get you all of the Fallout 4 DLC we ever do for just $30. Since we’re still hard at work on the game, we don’t know what the actual DLC will be yet, but it will start coming early next year. Based on what we did for Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim, we know that it will be worth at least $40, and if we do more, you’ll get it all with the Season Pass.”
Aside from that whole horse armor fiasco in Oblivion, Bethesda’s DLC has an excellent reputation and adds unique content that greatly expand on the original game. While Oblivion did charge money for essentially useless horse armor, it also had the Shivering Isles expansion, which reinvented the god Sheogorath as one of the most popular characters in the Elder Scrolls franchise.
Fallout 3 had DLC expansions like Broken Steel, which solved one of the base game’s most glaring shortcomings, and of course Skyrim had the extremely grim, somewhat Lovecraftian expansion Dragonborn, which allowed players to return to Solstheim for the first time since Morrowind’s 2003 expansion Bloodmoon.
While $30 may be an excellent price for eager fans who would buy Fallout 4’s DLC the second it comes out, more patient gamers can likely wait for the inevitable complete or “Game of the Year” edition that Bethesda usually releases about a year or so later, which includes the base game and all DLC for a price that is much lower than buying them all separately.
Image courtesy of Bethesda Game Studios