Fallout 34 Crams Fallout 3 and New Vegas Into Fallout 4, and Somehow There’s Multiplayer Too

Someone has gone and done it. Fallout 34, a new free mod from a modder called Cobalt, takes your own copies of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas and converts them into worldspaces inside Fallout 4, so all three wastelands live in one game.

It went up on Nexus Mods on 6 November and has already been patched to version 0.9.37. There’s also an optional Fallout 34 Online add-on that bolts experimental co-op and PvE events on top, because apparently three games at once wasn’t ambitious enough.

How it works

• No game files included: the download is a converter, about 135MB according to Fallout Corner. It builds the content from the games already on your PC, so you need to own Fallout 3, New Vegas and Fallout 4 with their DLC.
• Install time: Cobalt says the conversion takes about two hours on a good PC, and three to four hours on an older machine with less RAM.
• Getting around: a vertibird at Red Rocket flies you between the Capital Wasteland, the Mojave and the Commonwealth whenever you like.
• Starting out: you can start a new game in any of the three worlds, or load an existing Fallout 4 save. The installer also has a Fallout 3 save converter, which Cobalt warns may be buggy if you’ve got heaps of Fallout 3 mods.
• Fallout 4 versions: Cobalt says it works with the original, next-gen and Anniversary Edition versions of Fallout 4, with most testing done on next-gen.

What carries over and what doesn’t

This isn’t a straight remaster. Cobalt is upfront that it’s a merge of the three games, and that it has “a very different feel than the originals”.

• Converted: all outfits and armour, unique weapons and items, unique creatures like geckos and centaurs, and unique perks. Karma works in the Fallout 3 and New Vegas worlds.
• Swapped for Fallout 4 versions: shared items like stimpaks, shared weapons and ammo, shared creatures like ghouls and molerats, and terrain textures.
• Faces: everyone uses Fallout 4’s face and body system, so Cobalt warns characters “WILL look different” to what you remember.
• Levelling: it’s still Fallout 4’s system. The old skills exist, but they’re worked out from your perks, books and other stats.
• Companions: one human companion plus up to three dogs at once.
• A nice touch: a Pip-Boy map plugin draws your route through the DC metro tunnels, just like Fallout 3 did.

The DLC catch

• Fallout 3: Broken Steel, The Pitt and Mothership Zeta work. Operation Anchorage and Point Lookout don’t yet.
• New Vegas: Honest Hearts works. The other add-ons, including Dead Money, Old World Blues and Lonesome Road, don’t yet.
• Coming later: Cobalt lists full DLC support, weather closer to the originals, and settlements in the Fallout 3 and New Vegas worlds as planned updates.

Multiplayer, sort of

Fallout 34 Online is version 0.1.1a, and Cobalt calls it “highly experimental”. By default you play in your own world, but you can see other networked players running the mod.

• Events: co-op missions and PvE extraction events pop up around the map. Join one and your world is networked for that event only.
• Your save stays yours: you keep the XP and items you earn in an event, but decisions made during it aren’t saved to your game.
• Local co-op: a mate can also join your save directly.
• Chat: voice and text chat are in, but off by default because they’re unmoderated.
• Servers: Cobalt says the plan is to run them 24/7, apart from scheduled maintenance.

Worth knowing before you dive in

• Big requirements list: the Nexus page lists F4SE, Buffout 4, Address Library, Mod Configuration Menu, FallUI and more, plus lighting mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
• Bugs are expected: Cobalt says the main stories and major side quests were tested across “dozens” of full playthroughs, but not every path. One commenter quoted by iXBT.games reckons you need “a PhD in bug troubleshooting” just to install it.
• AI tags: the Nexus page is tagged AI-Generated Content and AI Media, and the online add-on is tagged AI Assisted. The page doesn’t say which parts that covers.
• Not official: Cobalt notes it isn’t made, supported or endorsed by Bethesda or ZeniMax.
• Not Capital Wasteland: it’s separate from the long-running Capital Wasteland remake project, which rebuilds Fallout 3 with new assets rather than converting the old ones.

If you’re into massive mod projects, we’ve also covered CyberVision 4.0’s 1,500-mod Cyberpunk 2077 overhaul and modders getting SteamOS running on Macs. Everything Fallout lives on our Fallout 4 page.

Our take

This is unhinged in the best way. Tale of Two Wastelands has merged Fallout 3 and New Vegas for years, but cramming both into Fallout 4’s engine, with a vertibird shuttle and drop-in co-op, is the sort of thing Bethesda should be embarrassed it never tried. Instead, it’s selling Creation Club horse armour while one modder does the job.

Temper the hype, though. Half the DLC isn’t in, the faces will look off, and it’s a two-hour install with a requirements list longer than a Bethesda patch note. The AI tags on the Nexus page will also put some people off, and fair enough, since Cobalt hasn’t said what they mean.

Still, if it holds together, Fallout 34 could be the best way to replay three of the best Fallouts in one go. Just maybe wait for 1.0 before you bet a weekend on it.

Capital Wasteland, Mojave or Commonwealth first? Fight about it in the GetRekt Discord.

Sources

• Nexus Mods: Fallout 34 (Fallout 3 and NV in Fallout 4)
• Nexus Mods: Fallout 34 Online
• iXBT.games: Modder combines Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4 into a single game
• Fallout Corner: Fallout 34 (Polish)
• GitHub: cobaltmods/fallout34havok
• Bethesda Softworks on YouTube: Fallout 4 launch trailer
• Steam: Fallout 4
• Steam: Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition
• Steam: Fallout: New Vegas