Things are going steeply downhill for the post-apocalypse on Steam

The launch of Amazon's Fallout series about two weeks ago did a lot of good for Fallout 4's player numbers and ratings on Steam. However, there is currently strong criticism of Bethesda due to the next-gen update released yesterday.

That happened: With the first major update for Fallout 4 in a long time, Bethesda is primarily targeting the current consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. But the PC also received an update that is now causing problems for many.

In detail: The difficulties arise primarily in connection with mods.

• Bethesda has warned that some mods will no longer work as a result of the next-gen update. But the extent appears to be greater than feared.
• According to Steam reviews, the problems manifest themselves in different ways. Some can no longer start their game at all, others crash after a certain amount of time.
• It is possible that the incompatibilities could often be easily solved. It remains to be seen whether, and if so which mods for the game from the end of 2015, there will be corresponding adjustments.

The development of the Steam reviews speaks for itself

The graph above shows what percentage of reviews for Fallout 4 have been positive since the Amazon series launched.

• Before the next-gen update, more and more players were positively impressed by Fallout 4.
• When the next-gen update was released on April 25th, the proportion of positive reviews clearly fell.
• One day later, things are looking even worse, with only around 58 percent of the reviews being positive (as of April 26, around 11:00 a.m.).

The content of the update is important: The fact that the next-gen update on the PC changes little overall may also play a role in the often negative mood official patch notes show.

• Technically, only support for resolutions in the ratio of 21:9 and 32:9 as well as verification for the Steam Deck are added.
• In terms of content, the patch only adds some free content from the Creation Club, including two pieces of armor and various skins.

In addition, some bugs are said to have been fixed. Considering the new problems that the update is causing for many who rely on mods, this is probably little consolation.

You can see how strange an old peculiarity of the Fallout 4 engine can be in the following video:

2:18

Did the Fallout series give you a taste for Fallout 4? Then it just doesn't play like we do

What's next? In order to solve the new problems with certain mods, the mod community has to lend a hand itself.

We will continue to keep an eye on how important the mods factor is for the game overall and how the mood on Steam develops against this background.

GameStar tests itself: We are also re-testing Fallout 4, including the next-gen patch, from today's perspective, which is expected to be released at the beginning of next week. You can ask us your questions about this in the comments of our announcement news.