Bethesda doesn’t owe Fallout: London anything, but its silence is still frustrating

Bethesda doesn’t owe Fallout: London anything, but its silence is still frustrating

Despite being swallowed up by Microsoft and Xbox’s corporate agenda, Bethesda is still a studio that I consider values its community. It’s gone out of its way to put Skyrim on every graphically-powered device imaginable, the Bethesda Ambassador programme is a thriving community of content creators, and it lends more support and encouragement to mod developers than any other studio. Unfortunately, it seems as though Fallout: London doesn’t exist to the company, and that’s quite irritating.

In the grand scheme of things, Fallout: London’s impact on the actual game is fairly minimal. It merely accentuated a natural spike in player traffic, and it quickly fell off as the FOLON hype dissipated. Still, there’s no pretending that Bethesda weren’t aware that the London mod was releasing this weekend. It received controversial coverage from the BBC and other major news outlets thanks to the apparent issue that “Bethesda didn’t tell [Team FOLON] about the Fallout 4 update,” and nearly 200,000 people have downloaded the mod files. It’s big, basically.

Starfield’s modding scene is aiming to keep the game afloat before the launch of the Shattered Space expansion, and the Creations hub is vital in empowering this. The Fallout modding scene is even more important here. There’s roughly 20,000 players enjoying the game right now on Steam, no doubt each copy modded to heck with graphical upgrades, new maps, and gameplay overhauls. Compare that to Starfield’s, currently sitting at 4,000, and you can see exactly where Bethesda’s golden egg lies.

I’m not suggesting that Bethesda need to collaborate with Fallout: London here, nor incorporate it as an official project. I just think a nod, a token of acknowledgement, or some appreciation would go a long way.

With the Fallout TV show, the collaboration with Magic: The Gathering, its appearances in Call of Duty, and the future appearances in Stumble Guys, Bethesda are milking its most popular IP for all its worth. Fallout: London, perhaps the most successful fan-made project in gaming history, has been a bunch of free publicity for Bethesda. The fact that it’s pretending as though it never existed doesn’t sit well with me.

The only reason I imagine might be a roadblock to Bethesda giving Fallout: London the attention it deserves is that the Xbox studio wants to distance itself from any projects that might be misinterpreted as one of its own. Fallout, by its nature, is an American story. Accepting and acknowledging Fallout: London’s existence might dilute that character slightly, however unconvincing that sounds. 

There is a shimmer of hope for Team FOLON, though. Todd Howard’s company has been known to poach mod developers, including some from theFallout: London team. Even Prilladog, the Lead developer, has had offers to join Bethesda, although he did turn them down. Bethesda clearly thinks there’s promise within the modding scene, it just refuses to publicly acknowledge its hard work.

Anyway. It’s set in London. It’s British. We’re polite, sometimes. Bethesda should be too.