Don’t Underestimate Fallout 4 Console Mods

With a new editorial over at VG247, Brenna Hillier wonders if Bethesda’s attempt to bring mods to consoles might not be be how they will make Fallout 4 even more successful than Skyrim in the mainstream landscape. Hillier argues that the Steam Workshop integration was one of the reasons Skyrim was so successful on PC, and that a similar solution on consoles might really help improve Fallout 4’s longevity and encourage new players to pick it up:

When the official Creation Kit launches and Fallout 4 embraces Steam Workshop, we expect Bethesda’s latest to take its place alongside Skyrim as one of the few single-player games to achieve hugely extended longevity. But what if this industry-beating lifespan could be extended to consoles, tapping into the huge audiences out there with a proprietary box under the telly?

I’ll tell you: Fallout 4 could become immortal. Free content, forever? You’ll never need another game.

That is, of course, if Bethesda can replicate the success of Steam Workshop on consoles, but we have good reason to believe it can. The picture Bethesda has painted of its vision for modding on consoles sounds very like the one Valve delivered to Steam.

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In a pre-Skyrim world, you might have expected Sony and Microsoft to balk at the idea of allowing mods on their precious machines. Mods can provide security holes for more nefarious activities. Sony’s experiment with UT3 may have convinced it the whole endeavour’s not worth the bother. Microsoft seems to have reversed its attitude of the XBLIG days in favour of an even more tightly walled garden.

But no: both platform holders were on board within months of the RPG’s announce. That’s indicative of just how compelling and powerful this idea is.