Fallout: London, PC [Part 6 – Tributes and References]

The magic sprinkled over the top of Fallout: London, I would say, are the many historic and cultural tributes and references, and other fine details, that have been woven into the game by the skills and dedication of the developers.

Discovering Nelson Mandela House, for example, is one such example. And not only that, but you can then take the elevator up and explore (and loot) Rodney and Del Boy‘s flat… There’s even a yellow TIT van parked outside…

There’s a quest relating to the film The Italian Job, which kind of ends as you’d expect it to; a pub-crawl/beer mat-collecting quest; there are loads of people still wearing World Cup ’66 shirts; characters walk past you, whistling the theme to Countdown, or quietly humming the theme tune to Eastenders (which blew my mind when I first heard it). There are tributes to Judge Dredd and 2000AD comic, Dr. Who, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Ray Davies, Brian Blessed, Banksy, The Wombles, Boots the chemist, and many, many other noteworthy historical individuals, bands and companies. And it all adds together to create a rather unique flavour to the game. And – yes – you can even go inside Buckingham Palace and meet The Queen (but only if you take a particular direction in the game).

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the accuracy of London – in the game; compared to the real thing. Well, the recreation in the game isn’t perfect, and never could be, but it is more than good enough to provide an outstanding backdrop for fighting and exploration, in my opinion. The modelling and construction of the many famous landmarks is brilliant, and the general layout of the map is accurate enough. Comparing Fallout: London to the base Fallout 4 game, the level of detail in the environments here is just incredible. Much higher detail than in Fallout 4, it seems to me. What the developers have gotten so right in Fallout: London is the density of the environment. You’ll continue to find places you haven’t seen before, even after hundreds of hours of play. And making the effort to examine every nook and cranny is often rewarded with nice things.

If there’s one thing Team FOLON has captured perfectly is the feeling that there’s something new and different around every corner. Real London is dense and varied, and destroyed London the same.

There may be some location disappointments, though, for those who do know London well. Like – for example – Brixton, which is a place I was looking forward to seeing, having lived there for six years IRL. Unfortunately, Brixton (or “Brickton“, to give you it’s name in the game), is no longer recognisable due to bomb damage. So no Lambeth Town Hall, Britxon Academy or Coldhabour Lane in 3D… 😦 The game also chooses to focus on The West End and Central London, and south and east London. Large parts of north and west London are simply not featured on the map. Yet.

There are no Vaults in Fallout: London, but there are what are known as “Pindars” scattered across London. These are hidden, but accessible bunkers often filled with useful loot, backstory information, and hostile ghouls and monsters.

The commonly-used currency in Fallout: London are tickets. Used Transport For London (TFL) tickets. Pound coins and other pre-war money can still be found, and can be sold or exchanged, as can other consumables, such as Flamer Fuel and bullets (both valuable and plentiful commodities).

There is no usable power armour in Fallout: London. Yet. There’s a set of interesting-looking power armour on a stand in Arthur’s chambers, but it is not usable. Yet. Hopefully in a future DLC…

You don’t have to play Fallout: London for long, to work out that it is something special. There are so many cool touches and humorous lines, that it’ll probably draw you in quickly. The challenge of the opening few levels is also worth commending, although the difficulty level can be changed at any point. Survival difficulty is the hardest setting, which has drastically-curtailed healing from the default difficulty setting.

Fallout: London is a startlingly good free mod that everyone should play and Team FOLON should be commended for what they’ve done.

Note: other Fallout 4 total conversions are also in the works. Fallout Nu Mexico looks very promising. Heck, I’m even half-tempted to make a Fallout Doncaster… Every town and city should have its own Fallout 4 mod! 😀

Final note: A VR version of Fallout: London has also been released, and in September 2025 the first DLC/expansion pack was released, called “Rabbit and Pork“. The expansion includes bug fixes and lots of new content. Along with the expansion’s release, a Kickstarter campaign was launched and funded for a collector’s edition of the game.

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