Fallout 4 VR Review

Fallout 4 VR brings the Commonwealth into your living room, offering an enormous post-apocalyptic adventure with moments of genuine immersion.

Over the years, Bethesda’s Fallout franchise has built a reputation for massive open landscapes, distinctive characters, environmental storytelling, and freedom of approach. Fallout 4 carried that on when it came out, offering you a damaged version of Boston, known as the Commonwealth, to explore. Fallout 4 VR takes the same quest and makes it more personal by letting you experience the wasteland through a virtual reality headset.

Instead of producing an all-new Fallout experience, Bethesda took the already existing Fallout 4 and turned it into a VR game. This decision means the entire main storyline, quests, weaponry, crafting systems, villages, and exploration have been moved into virtual reality. Fallout 4 already had the scale and intricacy of a major roleplaying game, so the idea was appealing.

It felt like a logical step for the series to wander through destroyed buildings, look up at massive structures, and encounter deadly animals at their true in-game scale. Unfortunately, porting a classic first-person RPG to VR was more than just adjusting the camera and adding motion controls. Several key mechanics weren't tuned well enough, making the game feel unfinished.

Many basic interactions feel clunky, and some design choices make it hard to forget that Fallout 4 VR was built around a regular controller.

That said, the modding community has done a lot to improve the experience. One of the playthroughs shown in these transcripts had about 200 mods, mixing parts of Mad God’s Mod Pack and GingasVR’s Mod Pack. These modifications significantly affect the game’s looks, controls, weapon handling, and immersion. What you get is an interesting juxtaposition between a dismal official VR port and an experience that can become really fun with enough community assistance.

Fallout 4 VR provides the same story as the original game. You play as Nate or Nora, living with your family just before a nuclear war kills the world around you. The bombs are falling. You and your family try to reach the safety of Vault 111. But that promise of protection swiftly turns into a nightmare once you are put into cryogenic storage.

You wake up to discover your spouse slain and your infant boy stolen. Eventually, you escape the vault and enter a commonwealth ravaged by nuclear annihilation. While your main goal is to uncover what happened to your child, you slowly meet towns, groups, companions, and the various threats that still plague this shattered globe.

The story itself hasn’t changed much for VR, so anyone who’s played Fallout 4 will know the main events. The difference is that you live such moments inside the globe. Instead of looking at a typical screen to see adversaries coming in, you can glance around and see how they inhabit the environment. Exploring an abandoned building or confronting a dangerous creature might feel much more personal.

The approach also helps with the game’s environmental storytelling. Fallout has always been great at telling its history through abandoned buildings, random objects, and bizarre scenarios left behind by people who once lived there. For instance, discovering a circle of mannequins around a body lets you view the scene from multiple angles, rather than just on a screen.

Keep a few roleplaying constraints in mind, especially if you didn’t like Fallout 4's old dialogue system.

In the flat-screen version, the conversation choices typically include short descriptions that don’t always convey exactly what your character will say. The voiced protagonist can also make the conversation feel less personal. Interestingly, the VR conversion keeps the discussions in first person, rather than the original's third-person dialogue cutscenes.

Other tweaks go further, muting the protagonist and showing more complete speech options. This makes the dialogue feel more like the roleplay style of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. The best thing about Fallout 4 VR is that you get to explore the whole Commonwealth. You can follow the main storyline, explore optional regions, collect equipment, perform settlement missions, interact with companions, and spend hours hunting for vital materials.

The original game's massive structure remains, giving you a big adventure instead of a brief VR experience based around a few levels. You may see some really outstanding conversion throughout the exploration. Seeing the environment in person changes your sense of scale. Buildings appear more intimidating, faraway places are simpler to appreciate, and foes feel more physically present.

One illustration of how well the world translates to VR is looking across the Commonwealth at night and seeing the lights of Diamond City in the distance. You have a few movement options. You can move directly using one of the headset's supported controllers, or you can teleport. Direct movement can help reduce motion sickness with comfort settings that restrict peripheral vision.

You can also select smooth turning and progressive turning to tailor the experience to your comfort level. Another choice is teleportation; however, its connection to stamina can feel a little strange in combat. This isn't the most intuitive implementation: you can teleport numerous times before you suddenly find yourself fatigued.

The physical interactions blend smart ideas with some poor conclusions. It's a nice touch to physically crouch to enter stealth mode, and melee assaults can feel more fulfilling when you physically swing your weapon around. Swimming has motion controls too; you have to mimic dragging yourself through the water with your hands. This is a weird inclusion, but it shows the devs tried to incorporate some VR-specific interactions.

But a lot of the other exchanges seem less thought out.

Menus and terminals might be a little slow to learn, and tossing explosives can be problematic depending on how the controllers interpret your movements. The port also features a strange presentation of the player’s hands. Depending on the arrangement, you may see floating weapons or even the controllers instead of convincing simulated hands. This is especially disappointing given how much time you spend handling weapons and interacting with objects.

Combat remains at the heart of Fallout 4, offering a mix of guns, melee weapons, explosives, and character-building choices. You can handle encounters by attacking from a distance, hiding behind cover, or closing in for melee attacks. One of the original conversion's more successful aspects is its physical melee system.

Pressing regular buttons feels unnatural compared to swinging a weapon yourself, and physically stooping to avoid discovery adds another dimension to stealth. These mechanics encourage you to play the game differently, rather than just copying the original experience. Handling of firearms without modifications is also way less believable.

Even weapons meant for two-handed use are limited to one-handed use in the unmodded edition. This is especially problematic with rifles and can hurt your aim accuracy. The conversion can also harm weapon balance. Some weapons are far easier to use than they should be without proper recoil implementation. The third transcript shows the Minigun, which becomes very strong when it lacks its normal recoil constraints.

Another big part of the combat is VATS. The original game’s mechanism lets you slow time, pick out enemy body parts, and spend Action Points on focused strikes. Fallout 4 VR keeps the familiar targeting system, but firing automatically aims at the chosen enemy, rather than recreating the original cinematic kill-camera sequences. That choice probably helps avoid discomfort from extreme camera movement in VR, but it also takes away some of the fun.

The Bullet Time VATS mod is a more enjoyable option. It maintains the slow-mo effect, but requires manual aiming and shooting. Attacks still use Action Points, and you can still score critical hits if you hit the right targets. This makes combat more engaging and gives you more control over your shots.

A big puzzle-focused system doesn’t define Fallout 4 VR. Sadly, technical glitches can occasionally make even simple encounters more challenging than they should be. When it works, the overall battle experience is fun, but the original concept leaves too many options open to frustration.

Fallout 4 VR carries on the character growth system from the original game.

You gain experience by performing tasks and killing foes, and you slowly level up, improving your character through the progression options. Each SPECIAL trait and perk you select increases your chances of handling certain scenarios. If you like to use guns, sneak around, fight at close range, etc. It gives you a reason to wander outside the main story path.

More optional quests, settlement activities, and interactions across the Commonwealth let you gain experience and build your character. But the third transcript illustrates how quickly the desired sequence might be interrupted. You can get the Cryolator early by using a collision exploit, giving you a powerful weapon much before the game expects you to have it.

Another way to get powerful early is to finish Diamond City Blues on a low level, which also nets you a good amount of chems. These instances suggest the progression system remains intact, but the VR conversion doesn't always retain its intended balance. The over-200 mod setup also changes the larger experience, so your progression can be affected by what mods you install.

Fallout 4 VR’s biggest visual strength is its feeling of scale. The Commonwealth feels far more magnificent when you can glance around and take in the size of its buildings, roads, and wrecked communities. Or walking under a huge section of elevated road. Or seeing the remnants of a ghost town. All can be more impressive than the original presentation.

Environments also gain from the ability to look closely at details. Weather, lighting, and distant sights all contribute to the mood, and the game's wrecked architecture helps tell the wasteland's story. With the correct changes, updated textures, environmental updates, and added weather effects, the planet can look substantially better.

But the original adaptation had several visual flaws.

Some areas have less greenery and environmental clutter, and textures sometimes look worse than expected. NPCs can also look the wrong size, appearing smaller than they should. Floating weaponry and the missing player body further break immersion.

Performance is another key issue. Getting the game to run smoothly may require a lot of tweaking, and performance can vary even between PCs with equivalent hardware. Some users might need to drop supersampling or alter reprojection settings for a more comfortable experience. Poorly rendered night skies can also be distracting and potentially uncomfortable for long periods.

While the modding community can greatly improve the visual presentation, these mods do not guarantee a flawless experience. For example, the FRIK body system can generate its own visual quirks, especially when employing its mirror mode. Fallout 4 VR can look great, but how well it looks depends heavily on your rig and your willingness to work past its limitations.

Fallout 4 VR keeps much of the original game’s sound design intact, including its evocative environmental sounds, familiar music, and character performances. Sounds of attackers moving through nearby areas and old buildings creaking lend a believable sense of place. Hearing footsteps above you while exploring a tower might make an otherwise mundane interaction feel more tense.

Another plus is the soundtrack. The Pip-Boy’s classic melodies contrast nicely with the wrecked settings, and the orchestral soundtrack heightens the intensity of fights. Familiar tracks are mixed with dramatic compositions, yet the blend still supports the game’s atmosphere.

The voice acting is, for the most part, serviceable, with the lead characters expressing the disorientation and horror of waking up in a wrecked world. The supporting cast also gives settlements and talks personality. Some players may not like the vocal protagonist (if you want a quieter RPG experience, this isn't for you).

Unfortunately, the audio presentation has some obvious flaws. Some impact sounds (especially explosions) lack the low-end punch you may anticipate from a VR shooter. Stereo separation isn’t quite as good as it should be, and NPC dialogue might seem to come from directly in front of you regardless of where the character is standing.

Fallout 4 VR is an ambitious translation of a huge open-world RPG, but it’s hard to overlook how unpolished some aspects of the experience feel.

Bethesda succeeded in translating the whole of the Commonwealth, its quests, its people, its weaponry, its settlements, and its advancement mechanisms into virtual reality. The original port has too many basic flaws, unfortunately. Missing hands. One-handed rifles. Awkward interactions. Weird mobility choices. Inconsistent performance.

Limited physical weapon handling. Together, these flaws create an experience that feels like a normal game ported to VR without enough love for its strengths. The three perspectives also demonstrate that the experience can vary greatly depending on how much work you are willing to put into it. You could also play the original port and deal with its limitations.

Another is to install a huge set of mods that enhance the player’s body, weapon handling, VATS, textures, weather, and roleplaying options. What makes Fallout 4 VR worth talking about is that its roleplaying shortcomings don't entirely ruin its strengths. To fully explore the Commonwealth, find environmental stories, fight terrifying enemies, and get all the typical Fallout moments within the universe is remarkable.

Fallout 4 VR is ultimately a challenging yet fascinating experience. This isn't a professional VR port, so don't assume everything will work smoothly out of the box. But if you have the patience to tinker with its settings and install the correct mods, there’s a great open-world adventure beneath the rough edges.