Fallout 4's big patch is getting patched, as Bethesda scrambles to fix what has turned out to be a big ol' shot in the foot so soon after the Fallout Amazon Prime series reawoke the game franchise from a long coma. Coming today, Monday May 13, the new patch will aim to fix what has been broken.
News in brief
- A new patch is due today, May 13
- It will aim to fix the many issues caused by the "next generation" patch
- Will it anger fans further by breaking savegames and mod support again?
The "next generation" patch, as it is known, was supposed to bundle in various fixes along with a bunch of improvements to make the game run better on newer consoles, and add a Steam Deck Verified status. But instead of making the game better, it generally made the game much worse, adding new graphical bugs, breaking older savegames, removing the ability to change graphic settings, and completely destroying compatibility for a number of beloved mods. Worst of all, it delayed the release of a much anticipated mod, Fallout London.
All in all, not a great patch, especially when it arrived on the heels of the much celebrated Fallout TV show. The TV show reignited interest in the game series, which had not received a new singleplayer entry since 2015. Fallout 76, a quasi-MMO version of the newer games, launched in a terrible state, and while it has benefited from the boost in player numbers from the TV show, it's Fallout 4 that's received the bulk of the attention. It's a shame then, that Bethesda ended up pushing out such a substandard patch when it should have been celebrating.
It's a good thing then that Bethesda is looking to fix the disastrous patch, but it obviously risks making things worse once again. The dust has very firmly settled after the original patch, and by pushing out another one now, Bethesda risks once again breaking mod support and annoying the community even further. The patch supposedly focuses on adding graphical options back into the game and smaller fixes, but there's always the risk of making things worse again.