Life in the Commonwealth is certainly interesting, with plenty of quirky NPCs and robots to talk to, plus the occasional terrifying encounter and five-a-side football match awaiting the Sole Survivor.
That said, no matter how big a Fallout fan you may be, sometimes you might find yourself longing for a bit of a change to spice things up.
While you could do this by transforming Fallout 4 into a JRPG, for those who just want combat to feel a little more satisfying, a new mod might be just what you’re looking for.
Get ready to battle some raiders, synths or super mutants a little differently.
The mod in question is called ‘Lite Combat Overhaul’ and is the work of modder 2gtandknives, whose previous work has changed which weapons spawn where in the game.
This time they’ve taken popular elements from existing mods and combined them with some of their own changes to make a massive overhaul which should make combat a lot different from the vanilla game.
For example, there’ll now be different damage effects based on where you hit an enemy, similar to ChoiceSpecsMawile’s ‘Hit 'Em Where It Hurts (Locational Damage)’, beasts will move faster than humans, as seen in zanadaniel’s ‘Immersive Fallout’ and critical hits will be obtainable outside of VATS, as in NotSure700’s ‘Critical Hits Outside of VATS’.
Alongside these and a few other similar alterations are 2gtandknives’ own changes to how cover works and how damage to torsos affects both the player and enemies, with a “stacking bleed effect” or a “Death Spiral” now having a chance to be activated if you target someone’s core effectively.
Also included as an optional addition are some changes to how carry weight works, based on lesrois’ ‘You Really Need A Backpack - Carry Limit’, ensuring that characters with low strength can only lug around a very small amount of gear.
If that sounds like what you’re looking for to reinvigorate Fallout 4 ahead of your next playthrough, make sure to grab FLipdeezy’s ‘Improved - Animated Accessible Backpack (Stand Alone)’ first, as 2gtandknives says: “Without this, the carry weight reduction version is too big a nerf.”
So, get some practice in by shooting some Nuka Cola bottles, head into combat, and make sure to follow us for coverage of the wacky worlds of Elden Ring and Skyrim modding.