New Fallout game released today by fans as London mod edges closer to release

There might not be any sign of Fallout 5 yet, but a fan recreation of Van Buren has just launched, while Fallout: London seems just days away.

There’s just one problem with the overwhelming success of the Fallout TV show on Amazon… there’s no new game to come out alongside it and there’s probably not going to be for several years, especially not in terms of Fallout 5.

Even the rumours of remakes and remasters of older games are pretty vague, which leaves nothing new to look forward to. But thankfully fans have things covered, with two major new mods on their way, that have the potential to be just as big as an official release.

The fan-made Fallout: London has been anticipated for years but Fallout Yesterday – Van Buren has also just been released and it attempts to recreate, as accurately as possible, a lost game that was originally supposed to be released before Fallout 3, but was cancelled back in 2003.

Newer fans often don’t realise, but Bethesda did not invent Fallout. It was originally published by the now defunct Interplay and was itself the spiritual sequel to 1988 game Wasteland, which recently got a modern sequel.

At the time, the Fallout games were isometric 2D titles and only moderately successful. They were developed by Black Isle Studios, who also no longer exist but many staff from which went on to form Obsidian Entertainment – who are now owned by Microsoft and are making this year’s Avowed.

After Fallout 2 in 1998, the plan was to make Fallout 3, codenamed Van Buren, which would still be a top-down game but was meant to feature 3D graphics for the first time. By this point, Interplay wasn’t in good shape though and while a lot of work and planning was done the game was cancelled.

Spin-off Brotherhood Of Steel was released instead, in 2004, but not long after Bethesda bought the rights to Fallout and four years later the actual Fallout 3 was released.

All of that brings us to today, and the release of a fan mod, based on Fallout 2, called Fallout Yesterday – Van Buren, which attempts to recreate what the game would’ve been as closely as possible, albeit it using only 2D graphics.

You can download the mod for free from Nexus Mods and while it’s not exactly Fallout 5 in terms of graphics and technology it is the closest thing you can get to an official sequel, for now.

Fallout: London brings the post apocalypse to Britian

The second closest is Fallout: London, which although it still doesn’t have an official release date now seems just weeks, or even days, away from release.

It would’ve been out already if the Fallout 4 next gen patch hadn’t made the base game more unstable, but the fan creators have given up trying to get their mod working on the new version and have instead announced that you’ll have to ‘downgrade’ Fallout 4 back to how it was before the patch, in order to play the mod.

When everything is finally ready it will be available via GOG, just as if it’s a regular game, with the creators claiming that it will be almost the size of Bethesda’s own Fallout titles, making it seem even more like an unofficial sequel.

There are a number of other similar mods planned by different groups, often set in countries other than the US – since Bethesda says their games will always be based in America.

Unfortunately, the Nuevo Mexico mod is on indefinite hold though, after the project lead quit. Fallout: Miami still seems to be on course though and if London is a success hopefully it will encourage even more similar projects in the future.

Bethesda, thankfully, is perfectly okay with all this and always encourages mods of its games. In fact, they headhunted some of the creators of Fallout: London to work on their own games, which is as good a seal of approval as you could hope for.

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