Created by Team FOLON, with the backing of gog.com, Fallout: London is a free total conversion for Fallout 4, turning the English capital city into a post-apocalyptic hellscape, with various different factions warring against each other.

The entire single-player campaign – the whole game, in fact – has been modified to give you a new storyline to play through, plus loads of other extras that accent the very Britishness of it all. The mod satirises British history, culture, and British manufacturing and consumerism, and has countless unique items and locations to discover while exploring.

I just want to add that I lived in London for ten years (1996 to 2006), and drove various cars around it for a number of those years, before the driving restrictions came in. Which gave me a unique mental map of the place. I’ve lived in both north and south London (Finchley, South Tottenham, Stoke Newington, Bermondsey, Brixton, and Sydenham, respectively); I’ve worked, walked and photographed a lot around central London, and know my way around it well. Which does give me an insight into the world-building here. I’m also a Fallout 4 veteran who’s bled the game and its DLCs dry, and have put more than two thousand hours into Fallout: London. So consider this a fairly thorough review… 🙂

So thorough, in fact, that I’m splitting this Fallout: London article into seven* parts – each with one hundred grabs each – showing my (three) playthroughs in detail, and also trying to show things that are unusual or interesting about the game.

*= It’s a six-parter, with a ‘hidden secret’ bonus part about the recently released DLC, Rabbit and Pork.

Ladies and gentleman: what we have here, in Fallout: London, is one of the greatest free mods of all-time! One that everyone who likes post-apocalyptic first-person shooters, and collecting shit, should play. It’s a fine piece of world-building, set in a detailed, destroyed, London of the future, that is overrun with violent hooligans and cultists, and in which you must fight off a wide range of enemies and monsters that are all trying to kill you, while exploring the irradiated landscape. You can also build up settlements of survivors to create safe-haven bases, although these are optional.

The story of Fallout: London opens with you floating inside some kind of suspension tank. A rather odd pair of scientists are stood in front of you, discussing your “progress”. From here you can choose your gender, and then your first character stats and perks*, and then something goes wrong and you break out of your confinement… From there, the game becomes a quest to figure out what the fuck is going on, and to find your first weapons and armour.

*= Fallout: London‘s opening perks are all double-edge swords, and they all have a major drawbacks. Luckily, you don’t necessarily have to choose them. You can choose just one perk, and then hit Escape to finish the selection. Or hit Escape without selecting any. One particular perk, Sleepwalker, will teleport you into a random bed on the map when you sleep, so is worth avoiding, unless you want a random game. The only starting perk I find useful is Strong Back, which boosts your carry weight at the expense of not being able to move or fast travel when over-encumbered.

The first meaningful piece of tech that you get is the “Atta-Boy“. This is the British version (reverse-engineered) of the Pip-Boy from Fallout 4, and it pretty does much everything the Pip-Boy does. So it instantly looks and feels familiar to those who’ve played Fallout 4.

Finding a decent first weapon in Fallout: London is not that straightforward. The game actually taunts you, by making access to guns difficult for the first few hours. Which makes early exploration super-tense and challenging. Not to mention: bone-chilling fun!

Not long after getting outside you’ll get to meet a brand new monster, called a Drenched Radshrew, and that will put the fear of God into you for at least the first ten levels. It’s a tougher, Thames-mutated** version of a shrew; one that will kill you with extreme prejudice, unless you kill it first.

**= Ah, yes – The River Thames. The iconic river flowing through the heart of London… It is so irradiated that most living things that fall into it will die within ten seconds… So there’s no swimming in the River Thames in Fallout: London…

More: Fallout: London on GOG.com
More: Fallout: London on Wikipedia
More: Official Fallout: London website

Read next:
Fallout: London, PC [Part 2 – Avoiding the Bugs]
Fallout: London, PC [Part 3 – The Storyline]
Fallout: London, PC [Part 4 – Why It’s Great]
Fallout: London, PC [Part 5 – A Cultural Classic]
Fallout: London, PC [Part 6 – Tributes and References]
Fallout: London, PC [Part 7 – Rabbit and Pork]