Fallout 4 Nightkin Mod
I've been playing Fallout 4 lately, and as always seems to be the case with Bethesda games, it practically requires a bunch of user-created mods to spruce up and polish the overall experience. That statement, of course, is meant to be a somewhat disdainful commentary on the way Bethesda designs their games, but I don't want to get into a long rant about why that's the case. (Maybe that'll be part of another article, later.) Rather, I just want to take a moment to showcase some of the many mods I've been running in my lengthy playthrough, with descriptions and mini-reviews for why I'm using them and what I think of them, plus recommendations for how essential I think a mod is and when it should be installed.
According to the Nexus Mod Manager, I currently have over 150 mods installed, though that number is misleading because some of the mods use multiple optional, modular plugins which count as separate mods (the item sorting mod that I'm using, for instance, accounts for 12 different plugins) or require compatibility patches to work with other mods, which again count as separate mods. I played about 30 hours of unmodded 'Vanilla' Fallout 4 before I started installing mods, and from there it was a cascading effect. It started with basic 'quality of life' improvements in the gameplay to fix minor/major annoyances, and then shifted to atmospheric overhauls with the visuals and audio to make the game look and feel more pleasant to play, and then towards the end became a matter of adding in all new content to keep things fresh and interesting. This article is meant to be a recommendation guide for which mods I think are worth installing if you're planning to play Fallout 4, but it's by no means a comprehensive, exhaustive guide of everything. There are a lot of highly-rated, super-popular mods that I chose to pass on for my own personal reasons, one of the main ones being that I wanted to stay pretty close to 'Vanilla' for the bulk of my playthrough (ruling out massive overhauls like ), or had to pass on because I lacked the required DLC (ruling out and ), while other mods affected things that I just didn't care about (like or any of the other ). This article is simply a look at some of the mods I'm actually using; use it as a basis to start your own research, and then go from there.
If this is your first time modding Fallout 4, note that you'll have to tweak some settings to enable unofficial mods (basically anything that you aren't paying for directly through Bethesda's in-game store). It's pretty simple, really, and only involves. From there, it's simply a matter of downloading and installing your desired mods - you can do this manually, typically by extracting files and folders and placing them directly in your game's main install folder, but I'd recommend using the because it makes keeping track of your mods much more convenient. It also allows you to set your own mod load order (helpful for preventing mod conflicts), and enables virtual installs so that you're not directly replacing game files (less tampering with main game files means less chance of screwing something up and causing critical errors). For installing and using the Nexus Mod Manager is helpful for learning how to use it, and the mod manager is really sleek and intuitive once you're familiar with it. When installing mods, it's probably smart to do them one at a time, testing each one individually to make sure everything works properly before moving on to install the next one. Sometimes mods may conflict with other mods, or may not work at all, or may cause other problems (like crashes), and if you install five mods at once then it's harder to find out which one is causing the problem.
Always have a backup save handy to roll back to, from before you installed each mod, so that you don't risk having your save file stuck with scripts and assets from non-existent mods if you have to uninstall something. Usually it's perfectly fine to load a save that uses assets from a mod that's no longer installed, but it can cause issues in some cases, so better safe than sorry.
While you're at it, you should follow as a loose guideline for how to set your load order when you install your mods. Next, there are few general mods you'll probably want to install right away, which are the and the mod.
An entire game took place between these two numbered entries: Fallout: New Vegas. Many gamers disregarded the game since it wasn’t a numbered Fallout entry. It was still canon to the series and remains a favorite of old-school Fallout fans. They ended up being lost on small references made throughout Fallout 4. Fallout 4 Mod Guide Introduction. Bethesda’s engine purrs gloriously as-is, but injecting the right user-created content supercharges the Fallout 4 world. The gold standard for PC modding is the Nexus Mod Manager. The Nexus Mod Manager is free and easy to install. The mods themselves, however, are a bit more tricky.
The MCM adds an in-game option in the settings menu which will let you configure many mods individually from within the game itself; not every mod has (or needs) MCM support, but it's great to have for the mods that do. When playing with mods, achievements are normally disabled (because it's effectively cheating, I guess), so the Achievements mod simply re-enables achievements.
This, of course, is completely optional and unnecessary if you don't care about unlocking achievements. If you have all the DLC, then the should also be a mandatory install. Finally, some mods will require the, which is an alternate way of launching the game to enable more advanced scripting. Whether you need this or not depends on which mods you install, which should be clearly marked in the mod's requirements tab on the Nexus.
If you're going down my list of mods and going with my recommendations, then it will definitely be required. Also note that with the Fallout 4 Script Extender, you should disable automatic updates for Fallout 4 through Steam or whatever platform you're using. The Script Extender has to be updated every time Bethesda updates Fallout 4, which means many of your mods (and effectively your ability to play Fallout 4) will break with each Bethesda update, until the Silverlock team release an update for F4SE.
That update could be later that day, or a few days later - you never know. So in the interest of keeping your game playable, you should set Fallout 4 to only update manually (ie, when you launch FO4 through Steam), and then make sure you always launch the game with F4SE.
Steam will let you know when Fallout 4 has a new update available, but as long as you don't launch the game through Steam it won't update and won't break your mods; only update the main game once you know that F4SE has also been updated. Finally, note that some of these mods I list have certain other requirements to install, like requiring one or two other mods (because they share assets with those other mods) to be installed first, which I'm not going to bother listing here, so make sure you check each mod's Nexus page for specific requirements and do your followup research before installing them. Some mods require that you have finished the tutorial (as in, left Vault 111), so in general I'd recommend playing through the intro, up until you leave the Vault for the first time, and only then start installing mods, once you're into the open world proper.
From here on, everything's going to be grouped into loose categories (Visuals, Atmosphere/Immersion, Quality of Life, Companions, Weapons, Armor, Clothing, Power Armor, Quests/Adventures) with individual entries for individual mods. There's a brief summary at the end of the article with a truncated list of all the mods mentioned, in case you want to skip all the commentary. Each entry will feature a brief description of the mod itself plus a few of my thoughts on it, with a link to its entry on the Nexus. Each mod is, ultimately, up to you whether you think it's worth installing or not, but I'll note in parentheses whether I think a mod should be considered ESSENTIAL (for mods that should definitely be installed for a first playthrough, or every playthrough, without question), RECOMMENDED (for mods that I think you should strongly consider using, even if I don't necessarily consider them 'essential'), or OPTIONAL (for mods that I could see other people maybe not wanting, or that have only a negligible/superficial impact). This section is for mods that simply enhance the game's visuals. They're entirely cosmetic, but can have some of the biggest impact on performance, so what you choose to install is mostly affected by how good your system is.
All of these recommendations are based on having a computer that meets Fallout 4's recommended system requirements. My CPU's a little worse than recommended, and my GPU's a little better than recommended, and running all of these mods concurrently in 1080p with the graphics set to mostly ultra and high (a few things at medium) gave me 60 fps indoors, 45 fps outside, and 30 fps in the city. ( ESSENTIAL): This is a post-processing setting that does a great deal with changing the overall look of the game, giving it a much more striking, cinematic feel.
Some of what it does is change lighting to be more natural/dynamic, which in turn creates darker shadows and more lighting contrasts. Dynamic depth of field, dynamic shadows, subtle bloom effects, and ambient occlusion round out some more of its features.
You can choose from a ton of different ENB mods; I went with this one because it seemed like a straight visual upgrade without trying to change the overall tone or atmosphere of the visual design. Of all the visual mods in this section, this one does the most and has the most profound effect; if you install only one visual mod, make it this one.
( OPTIONAL): This mod makes it so that enemies suffer a much more graphic effect when killed by a critical hit from a fire, laser, or plasma weapon. Download basara 3 for pc. If killed by a fire weapon, for instance, the corpse will remain on fire until the flesh dissolves, leaving nothing but a charred skeleton. For me, this is absolutely essential - I loved the effect so much that it made me switch to energy weapons full-time.
As an added bonus, you can set an option to trigger the effects from any killing blow by a fire, laser, or plasma weapon - not just critical hits.ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION. ( ESSENTIAL): By default, your pip-boy (when toggled) emits a glow in a radius around you, kind of like a lantern; it doesn't cast light very far, and it doesn't cast shadows. This mod turns the pip-boy into a more traditional directional flashlight, casting a concentrated beam directly ahead of you, which feels more immersive than the 'radioactive glow' of the default light. As a bonus, you can choose from a ton of options for how that flashlight beam looks, how far it shines, and also whether it casts shadows or not.
( RECOMMENDED): The bulk of the game's interface happens in the Pip-Boy menu, which is a bulky device normally attached around your left arm. It's always on your arm, and it sometimes conflicts with the aesthetic look of whatever clothes or armor you're using. This mod removes the Pip-Boy from your arm and turns it into a handheld tablet (era-appropriate) that you pull out of hammer space when you activate it. As a bonus, you can zoom in on it more than you can with the standard Pip-Boy, which almost makes it essential for me.
It's compatible with the Pip-Boy Flashlight mod. ( ESSENTIAL): As long as you have a weapon equipped in first-person, your character will continue to point it straight forward, all time, which often results in having a gun barrel aimed at someone's chest when you're just having a friendly chat in town. This mod adds a first-person animation that lowers your weapons after a few seconds of delay so that they're still visible on screen but not in the fully aimed, 'at the ready' position. Other mods do the same thing, but I like this one because of that delay. ( OPTIONAL): Vertibirds are like a helicopter used by members of the Brotherhood of Steel, but in the base game they seem to be made of tissue paper because they're always getting shot out of the sky and crash-landing in a fiery explosion. I assume Bethesda did that for the sake of 'cool visual effects' but it's completely unrealistic.
This mod makes Vertibirds less likely to get shot out of the air, and also makes them always spawn at max level, instead of scaling down to lower levels, so that they feel like actual threats instead of minor nuisances. ( ESSENTIAL.): Fallout 4 has some decent music, but it can get repetitive after a while (especially considering many of the songs in Diamond City Radio are recycled from CONELRAD Radio, a popular radio mod for Fallout 3 and New Vegas). Old World Radio adds 30 new radio stations to the game, each with a unique theme and most of them with a fully-voiced disc jockey.
Not all of the stations feel thematically appropriate or lore-friendly, but I really like most of them, and many are a great fit for the game. While I consider this mod essential, I don't recommend installing it right away because it clutters the radio list in your Pip-Boy to such a degree that vanilla radio stations (which often appear in proximity as you explore, and are often part of quests) might get buried in the list, and you'd have a harder time knowing what's vanilla and what's modded. So for my recommendation, I'd only install this mod once you start getting bored with the vanilla music.QUALITY OF LIFE. ( ESSENTIAL): Fallout 4 has horrible item sorting, which becomes a major issue the longer you play and the more stuff you end up with in your inventory. This mod adds categorizing tags to items so that similar items can be sorted into groups, making it much easier to find what you're looking for. ( ESSENTIAL): This mod highlights a bunch of interactable objects in the environment (loot, doors, computers, corpses, etc) with a ton of customization options for what actually gets highlighted, in what color(s), and under what conditions. I consider this essential because there's so much stuff everywhere, all the time, that it's easy to miss important things like actual doors that you can actually use or magazines/bobbleheads. This mod just makes it quicker and easier to find stuff, saving you a bunch of time, and you can customize it so much that you can make it as helpful or unobtrusive as you want.
It can be overwhelming to have everything turned on, all the time, so I'd set it to only highlight important stuff, or only when you want it to. ( OPTIONAL): Any time you're using a crafting station (to modify weapons and armor, for instance, or to make new items) the game shows a preview image of what you're doing, except the preview is shaded entirely in green like some type of low-quality computer rendering. This mod removes the green shading so that the preview more closely resembles what you're actually making. Mostly optional, but becomes more recommended if you start installing a lot of armor mods with modular components that you'll be crafting or modding in-game. ( OPTIONAL): This mod makes it so only the correct word in the hacking mini-game gets displayed, and turns the entire spectrum of the lockpicking mini-game into the 'sweet spot,' effectively removing the mini-games as much as you can without actually removing them. I like the mini-games themselves, but they're just a waste of time because as long as your character has the necessary skill, you're going to beat the mini-game eventually, it's just a matter of time. There's really no point to it, and I just don't have the patience or the desire to play those mini-games 600-800 times in a single playthrough.
Fallout 4 Nightkin Mode
( OPTIONAL): This simply makes it so you can breathe underwater while using the basic hazmat suit. Makes sense, since it has what appear to be oxygen tanks on the back, and should, in theory, be sealed to prevent external contaminants from getting to you. This is completely minor, but since I was usually using a hazmat suit to explore heavily irradiated underwater areas, this just made life easier (sensibly, too) by not forcing me to come back up for air while wearing a hermetically-sealed suit. ( RECOMMENDED): This mod takes the jetpack functionality from power armor upgrades and gives you a smaller one that you can use with any armor set, without the need for power armor or fuel, using action points instead. This is easily the most gameplay-altering option in this section, maybe even the whole list, so I was unsure whether to actually recommend it or not, but in the end this thing was simply too valuable for me to pass up, simply because I appreciate how much freedom of movement it brings to table. Instead of having to run around looking for a path up a pile of wreckage, you can just jetpack straight up it. Instead of having to look for a long detour around a huge chasm you can just jetpack straight across it.
This has potential to ruin certain 'dungeons' or other areas of the game where Bethesda clearly intended a certain approach or linear path through an area, which can lead to doing things out of order or allow you to skip entire sections of an area, so that's up to your discretion if you use the jetpack in those situations, or simply follow the obvious intended path. Seriously, after playing both Elex and Prey before this game, the jetpack feels practically essential to me.COMPANIONS.
( RECOMMENDED): This is basically your one-stop mod for companion tweaks because it does practically everything from boosting the number of companions you can have with you at once (normally you're limited to just one) to changing their combat AI, warping them to you if they get lost/stuck somewhere, changing their affinity likes and dislikes, giving them infinite ammo, and so on. I got it mainly to be able to bring multiple companions with me but ended up using it much more than I thought I would. This one is almost essential, and is if you want to use more than just one companion at a time. ( OPTIONAL): I don't normally care for these types of nude mods (I never had any intention of installing any) but I saw the body tattoos on the Phoenix skin and thought they were a good match for Cait's personality and background, which I applied to her using the Unique Followers mod. I then followed up and put two more of the skins from this set on Piper and Curie, and then went ahead and gave the regular NPCs new bodies as well.
What I like about this mod is that you can use it on the vanilla body meshes, and it has 'Wasteland appropriate' amounts of dirt, scars, and scratches that make the skin textures more 'lived in' than the clean Barbie doll skins of other mods. As a bonus, it has an option for the women to still wear panties, so they're never completely nude. + ( OPTIONAL): With this mod you can basically bring up the character creation window to change NPCs' appearances (or even yourself), which I used to give Piper a more advanced hair meshes and to do a complete overhaul of Cait, giving her a bunch of scars and face paint to better match her raider cage fighter background, as well as tweaking all three of their body types to make Cait more muscular, Curie much skinnier, and Piper a little heavier.
You can see some of these changes in my 'squad photo' above. ( OPTIONAL): Companions like or dislike different actions that you perform, which can eventually lead to unlocking new dialogue, quests, and perks; this mod lets you adjust how those affinity points are distributed, such as by removing negative shifts or by turning negative shifts into positive shifts, and by reducing the cooldown period so the shifts happen more frequently. It's not normally a big deal, but it gets to be a pain in the ass micromanaging companions and meta-gaming the system if you want to use multiples (especially at once), so this just makes life a little easier. As a bonus, you can use a setting to make each shift instantly maximize their affinity, which was nice for skipping the tedious affinity grind of dragging characters around for hours and hours, whom I didn't really like, just to unlock their extra content. You can do similar things with Amazing Follower Tweaks, but the 'instant adoration' and reduced cooldown effects are unique to this mod.
( OPTIONAL): You're going to be picking up a lot of stuff in this game, and a lot of it will be junk, just so you can break it down for crafting resources, which means you're going to hear your companions commenting and nitpicking you about the stuff you pick up all the time. It gets repetitive and obnoxious, so this mod simply removes those comments from the game. You're probably going to want this one eventually, but I'd wait until you start to actually get annoyed by stuff before you install it.WEAPONS: ALL OPTIONAL. This section is for different weapon mods. I used more weapon mods than the ones listed here; these are the ones I used most often, and thought were good enough to mention.
I recommend downloading weapon mods at some point (specific ones are optional) because after a while you're going to feel like you've seen all the weapons the game has to offer; at that point, start installing weapon mods to spice things up. For the most part, these mods also have the option to add the weapons to the environment and enemy spawns so that they appear in game naturally (some won't spawn until you reach a certain level, to keep high-powered weapons out of low-level players' hands), but even still I'd recommend only installing these around the mid-point of the game. These selections are based on me using the 'Rifleman' perk, which means no automatic weapons. This section is for mods that simply add more clothing options to the game. There's not a lot of good clothing options in the game by default, so these mods simply give you more variety. A lot of them can be worn under armor pieces, and are added to the environment and enemy spawns to find later (though all can be crafted if you desire). Since most of these are cosmetic you'd be fine installing any of these from the start, though they're all technically optional (I'd recommend installing some, at some point).
These are some of the better ones I used (there're a lot that I've omitted from this section); there's not much I can say about most of them, just look at pictures and just install whatever ones you think look best. All clothing sets here are lore-friendly and thematically-appropriate, and work with vanilla bodies.-. Male and female.-.
Male and female.-. Male and female. Probably my favorite of the bunch because of its immersive vendor, where you go to buy these clothings and armors. ( RECOMMENDED): Using power armor in FO4 consumes fuel from a supply known as fusion cores, which are incredibly sparse in the beginning of the game, and those fusion cores drain incredibly fast. It's kind of immersion-breaking to think that these fusion cores have been powering entire radio stations and subway stations for 200 years, but then you put it in a power armor frame and suddenly it runs out of juice after walking around for 20 minutes.
This mod lets you change how quickly those cores drain. In reality, you're going to find so many fusion cores by the end of the game that this isn't even necessary, but I think it's worth using to give yourself a slight reduction early on, just so that you can feel more comfortable using the power armor from time to time instead of worrying about using all of its fuel, and thus never using it.QUESTS/ADVENTURES. ( OPTIONAL): This is the biggest and most popular quest mod, but I wasn't a big fan of it. ( RECOMMENDED): From the co-creator of Fusion City Rising, this mod introduces you to 'Dr' Nick and sets off a decently long chain of quests to (eventually) help him assume the role of pretend super heroes to fight alongside Nightkin to rid the commonwealth of raider scum.
Fallout 4 Nightkin Mod Download
The story is pretty fun, and I like the gameplay puzzle of trying to solve the puzzle in Nick's shop - as the title suggests, basically everything in Nick's shop kills you in ridiculous ways, so you have to figure out the order in which you can safely interact with things without getting killed, using an assortment of clues that you progressively unlock. The whole mod is an all-around silly premise that certainly violates the base game's intended tone, but that makes for a nice change of pace, I feel, since this mod commits to going full-on bonkers to the point that you can't even pretend to take it seriously.
It has some combat, but it's tastefully balanced with other gameplay elements, plus I like the music, and it's nice to have actual recurring locations and recurring characters to interact with. It's pretty long, too - not as long as Fusion City Rising, but it packs in a lot of content nonetheless. ( OPTIONAL): This mod has a great concept and would absolutely be my favorite of these quest mods, if it actually worked. This mod sends you to a horror-themed haunted amusement park, initially on a quest to rescue someone's sister, and then you get trapped there and have to solve a series of quests to get out. It features some actual role-playing options with meaningful decisions that lead to different endings, with a ton of brand new assets and fun concepts (like fighting feral creepy clowns) in an environment that's absolutely dripping with theme.
I had a ton of fun just getting to this new area, never mind the area itself, which is simply phenomenal. Unfortunately, I ran into a game-breaking bug pretty early that prevented me from advancing its main quest and so I had to uninstall it and revert to earlier saves. From reports, it seems like a lot of people run into major issues that prevent them from finishing it, so while the idea is promising, you should try this one at your own risk. ( RECOMMENDED): This mod adds a new vault to the map (housed underneath a church in a swamp, both new areas as well) with a small story about how the church congregation built the vault right before the war and what all transpired within the vault in the last few hundred years. It's a short adventure, only lasting about 30 minutes, and really feels like more of a tech demo (it was made by Nvidia, after all) to showcase graphics and lighting effects since seemingly every room you enter blinds you with bright lights and god rays, as if you're playing God Ray Simulator.
There's not a lot going on in this mod, just a small vault with a few computer terminals to read and a few feral ghouls to shoot, but it's got a decent atmosphere and a decent little story, plus it's so short that it doesn't outstay its welcome. There's nothing really special here, but it's alright for what it is and so you may as well go ahead and play it.
This one can be installed from the beginning since it's just a minor side adventure with no major implications on anything beyond its own little story. ( RECOMMENDED): Like Vault 1080, this is another short adventure mod that adds a single quest and just a few environments to explore. This one is a short atmospheric horror adventure where you get warped into a ghostly manor and have to find a way to escape. Also, there's a little girl with mysterious powers and an inanimate teddy bear (vaguely reminiscent of Freddy Fazbear) who randomly appear to spook you.
There's not a whole lot of story here, and there's not much going on besides exploring the environments trying to find a way to progress forward, but I'm ok with that since I appreciate horror atmospheres and it was nice to do something other than shoot stuff in the face for a while (although there's still some of that going on, here). That being said, the horror elements aren't very strong - a few decent minor spooks - so it's mostly just atmosphere. I liked it more than Vault 1080, and the fact that it's pretty short (less than an hour) with pretty good quality overall, makes it a recommendation.
( ESSENTIAL.): This mod should be required for every playthrough, and is the only one in this section that I feel should be installed at the very start of a new game. This mod adds about 30 new quests and encounters with top notch production value; everything is so well-produced and well-implemented that I might not have realized I was stumbling into mod content if I didn't already know it was part of a mod. And yet, somehow, the quests and interactions in this mod are actually better than almost anything you can do in the base game, with quests that involve actual puzzles and environmental manipulation, skill checks, branching paths in quests, choices that matter, with actual consequences, and so on. Plus, it does a lot to help flesh out some of the game's more lifeless and barren areas by giving you real human interactions where would normally there'd only be shooting raiders in the face, or simply nothing at all. Most of the quests feel like you're meant to stumble into them through regular exploration, and so it was kind of difficult to track some of them down using only the in-game clue system after I'd already explored pretty much everywhere. I'd suggest having this mod installed right from the get-go so that you can discover these things as you play.
Remember that this is not a comprehensive, extensive guide to Fallout 4 mods in general, but is simply a look at the mods I ended up installing and thinking were good enough to recommend. There are a ton of good mods out there that I never tried, either because I worried they would take the game too far away from the Vanilla version that Bethesda intended, or because they affected things that never bothered me or never interested me.
If I cared more about settlement building, for instance, then I'm sure I would've installed a dozen or more mods for that, too. In some cases, I had to skip mods that interested me just because I was lacking required DLC, or because they required too many other mods that I didn't want to bother with. The mods I've selected here mostly help to clean up some of the game's rougher, more annoying edges while making it look and feel much nicer to play, without really changing too much of Bethesda's intentions. All mods listed here were used concurrently in my playthrough, so they're confirmed to be compatible with one another, though they sometimes require compatibility patches. Make sure to to enable mods, and use the to download, install, and manage your mods.
Fallout 4 Flashlight Mod
Install and test them one at a time, and always have a hard save backup in case something goes wrong, so you can revert to a previous save that hasn't been encoded with corrupted mod scripts. You'll need the for some of these mods so disable automatic updates for FO4 and only update the main game when you know that F4SE has also been updated, otherwise your mods will break when the game updates. Be sure to check each mod's Nexus page for any pre-requisite mods, since a lot of them require toolsets or assets from other mods to work. Finally, wait until you've finished the intro area and left Vault 111 before installing any mods. For quick reference, here's a full list (without commentary), separated into ESSENTIAL, RECOMMENDED, and OPTIONAL groupings.