After the success of the Fallout series, one of the things Bethesda has done is to immerse themselves in a new patch for Fallout 4. Their promise was to improve the graphics quality, make it compatible with current generation consoles, and add some juicy extras. Nothing exceptional, but a noticeable change that would delight fans. Now, with the patch already released, what most users expected has happened. The patch is an absolute disaster.
Starting with the patch itself, the change is absolutely minimal. The game could already be played on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, as they are backward compatible consoles, and the changes in graphic quality are minimal. If not non-existent. Now you can play in 4K, and now you can choose between playing in quality mode or performance mode, but that seems to be the only change. Or it would be if they hadn’t also added support for widescreen displays. Without modifying the UI, which looks completely stretched and practically illegible on these monitors.
The new content is limited to, literally, two armors, two weapons, and two new skins. Something that is not bad, but it is far from being a spectacular change of any degree. Especially when we consider that, even with some bug fixes, it has broken more than it has fixed.
Perhaps the most serious thing of all is that if you used any kind of mod in Fallout 4, you probably don’t want to see the state of your saved game. This patch has corrupted the saved games of some of the most important mods in the game. This means that thousands of players have lost, at least temporarily, their saved games and the ability to play the game. Something that every developer with an affected mod will have to solve in the near future if they want it to remain playable.
In addition, this patch has not been good news for PlayStation users. All those who play Fallout 4 on PS Plus have discovered, to their dismay, that the patch has not been applied to their version of the game. This has led to numerous complaints on social media, prompting Bethesda to backtrack and state that they will also apply the patch to all PS Plus users.
But that’s not all. In addition to not fixing a bug that causes the game to crash under certain circumstances with RTX cards, a bug that has existed since the launch of RTX cards, the Steam Deck has also not been spared from problems. Now it is impossible to modify the graphics options on Valve’s handheld, whether due to a bug or an intentional decision by Bethesda. Similarly, they have also not fixed the issue that, on the Steam Deck OLED, the game runs at half the frames it should due to its 90hz display.
In conclusion, the patch has been an absolute disaster. Fallout 4 is still a magnificent game, which we recommend as a good entry point to the Fallout saga, but the patch has done more harm than good. All of this can be fixed, but again, it will take some time for everything to work as it did before for those affected. Something that demonstrates that, sometimes, it’s better not to touch what is already working fine.
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