It was a long, long wait for Playstation 4 owners to finally get in on the wasteland modding action, and when it arrived, Fallout 4 fans weren't exactly pleased by the extra limitations above and beyond what's found on the Xbox One edition.
Even now, months after mods have been available, the number of PS4 entries continues to lag far behind what's on tap over on the other side of the console fence. Sadly, due to the restrictive nature of what's allowed on console mods, it's unlikely we're going to get an epic total conversion like you'd see on the PC.
The lack of space and inability to add in huge new assets just won't allow for such major changes to the base game. Don't let that kill your enthusiasm for PS4 modding entirely though, as there's still several overhaul mods that significantly change up the Fallout 4 experience on the Playstation platform.
Over the next several slides we cover some of the best of the best in PS4 overhaul mods that you should be trying out immediately.
Unified Clothing Overhaul
For a change in the game's aesthetics and how you can make your character look while stomping across the Commonwealth, this is the mod that should unquestionably be downloaded straight away.
The UCO mod completely opens up the clothing opportunities, allowing you to craft essentially any outfit you can imagine while still have the benefits of armor. If it's something that appears in the game anywhere on any NPC, you can now equip it as your outfit.
Don't like how your current armor looks but prefer its stats? No problem, with UCO you can make exterior clothing invisible, so the defensive qualities remain while the cosmetics are shifted to whatever style you prefer underneath.
Overgrowth Forest Overhaul
Like a much more invasive and complete version of the Simple Green mod (see the next slide), this Overgrowth offering turns most areas of the Commonwealth into a much more verdant forest.
It makes the entire Fallout 4 experience less dreary and empty-seeming, with vegetation overtaking the Boston area long after the radiation has subsided 200+ years after the bombs first dropped. The color scheme is probably the most frequently sited visual problem with the modern Fallout games, and mods like this handily take care of that concern.
Simple Seasons - White, Red, Green, and Yellow
Biggest Upcoming Fallout 4 Mods
A clever way of getting around some of the restrictions on adding new external assets in PS4 modding, this series of mods tweaks the colors of grass, trees, objects, and vegetation to let you change the Commonwealth to whatever season you desire.
While it may not radically change the game in terms of content or weaponry, it does completely alter the feel of the story with a different season overtaking areas rather than just having everything be that washed out brown/gray color.
Shown above is an example of Simple White, which takes us from eternal nuclear winter to actual, regular old winter. Even more striking is Simple Red, which sets the trees afire with fall leaf colors for a much less monochromatic playthrough.
Wacky Weapons Workshop
Fallout 4 Good Shotgun Mods
The lack of external assets really hampers weapon mods on the PS4, but one forward-thinking player put together something really interesting just by changing how weapons can be crafted.
Now you can put together just about any combination imaginable - including some that really shouldn't exist, like adding a fatman launcher to a revolver. Who doesn't want to launch nukes from their handgun?
The mod also lets you manually add in multiple legendary effects to a wackified weapon, allowing you to craft some truly outrageous guns and melee weapons without having to kill legendary monsters and hope you randomly get something good.
Remember seeing some of the more bizarre robotic companions when Automatron first came out and laughing at how ridiculous some combos could become? Get ready for that, in weapon form.
Scrap That Settlement
Having primarily played Fallout 4 on the PC, it didn't occur to me until seeing this mod that console players are still having to deal with Bethesda's terrible settlement system in its original form. My sincerest apologies, console peons, because that sounds like a real bummer.
If you want more control over how your settlements look, this very nifty mod lets you scrap almost everything -- grass, rocks, bodies, and all sorts of objects that weren't originally scrappable.
New versions of this mod are slated to land soon that will allow you to scrap whole creatures and structures as well.
Huge Fallout 4 Mod
Zombie Walkers
The feral ghouls in the Fallout universe have always flirted with being zombies, but they never quite go the whole way there. Putting you in an episode of The Walking Dead (or any given classic zombie flick), this overhaul mod takes ghouls and makes them into a shambling horde of the living dead.
Unfortunately, this PS4 version is a bit stripped down from the PC mod of the same name, but it still gets the job done for console players. Feral ghouls are renamed to zombies, sprinting is disabled, and health is modified so that head shots appropriately take them out. A few animations are also tweaked as well for more of a horror feel.
These modified ghoul zombies also come in big herds that you don't want to get caught in! Needless to say, this pretty drastically changes the feel and tone of a Fallout 4 playthrough. Hiding under a dumpster won't keep you safe here.
Outfield Retreat Home
Don't care for the home options in Diamond City or want to have everything at your fingertips in one centralized location?
This RV home not only looks fantastic -- complete with Nuka Cola themed knick knacks all across the outside -- but also has multiple connected crafting locations, storage space for your bobblehead collection, clean water for survival runs, and a bed offering the well rested bonus.
Plenty 'O Exploration
This is an overhaul mod that fans have to put together every time a new Bethesda entry arrives, especially in the Fallout universe. You'd think eventually the developer would get on this without the players having to do it..
The game maps are always huge, with tons of areas to explore, but then you arrive at a specific location and most of the buildings and hallways can't be accessed and are just cosmetic. Whether doors that can't be opened or piles of rubble blocking your way, there's a distinct lack of indoor exploration.
Fallout 4's rendition of this perennially needed fix, Plenty 'O Exploration, is currently in beta for PS4, but still provides a drastically needed service by adding in many new interior segments for a huge increase in the amount of area actually available to explore.
Cheatmaker
Last but not least is Cheatmaker, which overhauls the game by putting everything at your fingertips with no effort required whatsoever! After crawling out of the vault, the Sole Survivor can craft anything at all with no materials required. Want some sweet power armor straight off the start? No problem!
There are a whole lot more Fallout 4 mods out there ready and waiting to be downloaded than the nine PS4 overhaul mods we've covered here. What's your favorite PS4 overhaul mod we should try out? Let us know in the comments section!
If you're still on the hunt for even more ways to modify your Commonwealth wasteland experience, be sure to also check out these mods as well:
Published Apr. 11th 2017
Posted by3 years ago
Archived
I've decided to assemble a list of Fallout 4's graphical enhancing mods for the community's benefit, aimed at those looking for the most visually pleasing Commonwealth experience. As such, no mods included in the graphics portion of this list will affect the vanilla gameplay. Though at the bottom of the page I’ve included numerous mods that can alter your gameplay experience.
The goal of this list is to provide a selection of non-overlapping mods that can be installed to increase the graphical fidelity of a vanilla play through. Thus the ENB preset I chose to include focuses mainly on graphical quality rather than performance, but it can be substituted with a number of presets available on the Nexus. I've used my personal discretion while selecting choices for similar/overlapping mods, so if I've left out a mod it means that a hopefully acceptable substitute has been chosen instead.
As frequent player of all Fallout games, with over 1000+ hours in Fallout 3 alone, I can relate to the initial struggle and countless hours lost while attempting to install mods. Hopefully this list can benefit hardened Vault Dwellers and newcomers alike.
Required:
- Nexus Mod Manager – Allows the easy install/uninstallation of mods across a variety of games with direct integration in the Nexus website.
- LOOT – Shows conflictions, missing .esp's and .esm's in your load order. Extremely useful when installing a large number of mods.
Modding Resources: (Download these, you’ll probably need them eventually)
- Enable Achievements - Allows the player to gain achievements after modding their game.
Performance Tweaks:
- Insignificant Object Remover – Deletes game world objects not normally visible to the player.
- Shadow Boost Dynamically reduces shadow quality in attempt to reach a preset FPS target.
- Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch – A collection of bug fixes that Bethesda has yet to patch in.
Textures:
- FlaconOil’s Texture Pack – Collection of game world textures.
- Halk Hogan's Texture Pack – Collection of game world textures.
- Langley’s Texture Pack – Collection of game world textures.
- Valius’s Texture Pack – Collection of game world textures.
Graphics Tweaks:
- Clear Reflex Sight Lenses – Replaces the grimy reflex sight lens with a clear one.
- Customize Targeting HUD – Configure how the power armor NPC targeting helmet will work.
- Darker Nights – Decreases player visibility at night.
- Dynamic Muzzle Shadows – Enables dynamic shadows from weapon muzzle flashes.
- ENB Binaries – Required for the ENB preset to function.
- Increased Headlamp Light Distance – Increases the distance that the power armor head lamp light extends to.
- Lowered Weapons Animation – Lowers FPS weapon models when they are not being fired.
- Mega Explosions – Customize explosion power and radius.
- More Grass – Increases the density of grass present on the landscape.
- Photorealistic Commonwealth – ENB configuration to give the game a realistic look, requires ENB binaries.
- Pipboy Shadows – Enables dynamic shadows on the Pipboy light and power armor head lamps.
- Realistic Lighting – Disables fake interior light sources and overhauls world light sources for a more realistic look.
- Remove Distance / Interior Fog – Disables interior fog and exterior distance fog for a much clearer FOV.
- Remove Ironsights Blur – Removes the DOF like ironsights blur while ADS.
- Shell Casing Despawn Timer Extender – Enables shell casings to remain on surfaces for much longer periods of time.
UI Tweaks:
- Colorful Survival Mode Icons – Replaces default survival mode player condition icons for ones with colours based on the magnitude of effect felt.
- Customize Dialogue Interface – Customize the type of dialog display to be used.
- DEF UI – Replaces the vanilla UI for a version more suited for modern PC monitor configurations.
- Improved Item Sorting – Allows for inter-category sorting in the players inventory, items are further subdivided in each inventory section.
- Improved Map – Replaces the vanilla map with a detailed one including road locations, helps to navigate during survival mode.
- Improved Weapon Mod Descriptions – Replaces the default descriptions for ones giving exact stats regarding the mod.
- Value Per Weight Indicator – Gives every item a value per weight indicator.
Optional Gameplay Additions:
- Arbitration - Overhauls most combat systems including damage, stealth, and ai. More info on the mod page.
- Armorsmith Extended – Overhauls armor equipping and modification systems
- Beantown Interiors – Adds interiors to buildings previously boarded up across the commonwealth.
- Customize Jetpack AP Drain – Customize the AP loss from using the jetpack.
- Customize Legendary Enemy Spawning – Configure the percentage of hostile NPCs that will be legendary.
- Customize Power Armor and Jetpack Drain – Customize fusion core drain from using power armor and its jetpack.
- Customize Time Scale and Fast Travel – Customize the game time scale and the time fast travel takes to complete in game hours.
- Customize XP Gain – Customize the amount of XP gained from a variety of sources.
- Deadly Radstorms – Increases radiation gain from radstorms.
- Difficulty XP Scaling – Rebalances XP gain to be based on game difficulty like in Fallout 3.
- Dogmeat as Second Companion – Allows the player to bring along Dogmeat as a second companion along with their primary NPC companion.
- Durable Vertibirds – Increases the amount of damage vertibirds can take before they crash.
- Easy Hacking – Gives the player only one password option when hacking, changes system from skill to player stats only.
- Enable Bullet Time – Enables bullet time ability, used at the cost of AP.
- Enable Survival Mode Console – Enables console commands in survival mode.
- Enable Survival Mode Fast Travel – Enables fast travel in survival mode, multiple variations.
- Enable Survival Mode Quick Save – Enables quick saving in survival mode.
- Faster Terminal Displays – Customize text and display switching speed on terminals.
- Increased Settlement Budget – Allows more objects to be placed in a settlement’s budget.
- Increased VATS Distance – Allows VATS target acquisition at almost any range.
- Improved Settlement Placement Snapping - Improves the settlement item placement snapping points.
- Longer Powerlines – Increases the distance that powerlines can be attached.
- More Spawns – Vastly increases the amount of hostile NPC spawns in most Commonwealth locations, adds faction patrols etc.
- NPC's Move – When you walk into a companion or other NPC, they move out of the way.
- Ponytail Hairstyles – Adds a number of ponytail type hairstyles for female characters.
- Quieter Settlements Machines – Decreases the noise produced by several settlement objects.
- Realistic Ballistics – Makes bullets behave according to physics, with bullet drop, travel time, etc.
- Realistic Scrap Components – Adds or removes crafting components on many scrap items for a more realistic balance.
- Safe and Trunk Contents Reworked – Replaces the loot lists on certain containers to encompass many different items based on player / lockpick level.
- See Through Combat Scopes – Adds a variety of combat scopes that keep the default player view when ADS.
- Settlements Expanded – Adds a variety of game items to be placed in settlements.
- Ffxiv crystal data center. Settlers Expanded – Overhauls the settler system, adding settler types and varying control methods.
- True Storms – Adds a number of weather types to the base game.
- War of the Commonwealth – Alternative to More Spawns.
- Weapon Damage Rebalance – Overhauls the damage model across most guns in an attempt for realism.
- Workbenches Expanded – Overhauls the crafting system allowing for weapon, armor, ammo crafting etc.
I've most certainly forgot a number of mods, (These are all the ones I have currently installed.) feel free to comment stating ones you feel deserved to be added to the list.
75 comments