'Fallout 4: New Vegas' Dev Team Explains Why It Will Never Come to Console, More

There are a ton of amazing total conversion mod fan projects out there and Bethesda's Fallout [...]

There are a ton of amazing total conversion mod fan projects out there and Bethesda's Fallout series seems to bring out the creativity of its fans in the best way possible.

With Fallout: New California, New York, Miami, and the incredible Fallout 4: New Vegas projects on the horizon, it's not hard to see why there is so much interest in seeing these ambitious mods make it to completion. That being said, there's one major question that all of these creators receive on a daily basis: Is it coming to console?

The F4NV crew finally is addressing it head on.

To preface the dev team's statement, it wouldn't make sense for projects on this scale to come to console. Many of these started 5, 10 years ago — long before consoles had any kind of mod support. Up until recent years, mod support has securely been a PC feature, so because of that, these creators have built their own renditions of the Wasteland around that model. By the time console mod support came along, there was just too much progress being made to turn back.

But that's not the only roadblock, which the F4NV crew pointed out. The dev team took to their Facebook page to explain, "To begin with, one needs to understand the console modding requirements. Users on consoles have a maximum filesize for all of their mods - combined. That sits at 2GB of mod content. Unfortunately, F4NV rides in - even in its current, unfinished state - at well over 2GB."

"Given the number of new assets we need to bring the Mojave to life in the new engine, this is simply the reality of the mod for us. Even Fallout: New Vegas weighted in at a fairly lightweight (by modern standards,) 9GB, and while much of that content was recycled from Fallout 3, we unfortunately do not have the same luxury as Obsidian did as far as reusable assets for Fallout 4: New Vegas," they added.

"Many of the assets in Fallout 4 are unsuitable for use in F4NV, with the being tied so closely to the look and feel of architecture found on the east coast of the United States. As well, many weapons and environmental objects do not match up with or replace their New Vegas counterparts in Fallout 4, meaning those often need to be replaced or created from scratch. All together, this means that our file size has to get bigger, no way around it," they continued.

They also talked about the restrictions that Sony has put on mod support, which is significantly less than its Xbox One counterpart. Because Sony won't allow for new assets to be added, there's no real reason for creators to even consider the PS4 platform.

"As such, they need to only use content already existing in Fallout 4. While this has birthed some fantastic mods for Playstation users that rely only on the base Fallout 4 content, this means that mods such as F4NV — which require new assets to work — simply cannot be released for Playstation 4 users," they explained.

But don't take this to mean they have a problem with consoles — far from it. It really is just about technical restrictions.

"Fallout 4: New Vegas relies on F4SE. Many of our base functionalities that are needed to bring the old New Vegas systems back in the Fallout 4 Creation Engine rely on it to create functional replacements for these systems - without it, we're forced to utilize hacky workarounds to get those systems working, and more often than not that creates a buggy solution that creates more problems than it solves," the crew said.

It's a slippery slope, one that doesn't have a workaround.

"Unfortunately, restrictions placed upon the kind of mods that can be uploaded for console users include one the makes it impossible for F4SE to be released on consoles as well," the devs continued. "As a result, F4NV cannot work on consoles, even if the above restrictions were loosened or removed. Scripted solutions will not work in the place of F4SE, and so this is a major impediment to seeing F4NV released on any console."

To learn more about the project that has been years in the making, check out their previous updates over on their site right here.

Like mods? Feel free to follow the author of this story over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy!

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