Fallout: London Could Open Doors for Big, Ambitious Mods on GOG. Platform Manager Spreads Beautiful Vision
GOG can help promote and easily benefit from ambitious fan modifications in the future. That's on the condition that players well receive the release of the Fallout: London mod on the platform.
Fallout: London serves as a test for GOG.com as a platform for major mods. Adam "Adim" Ziolkowski, the technical developer of a Polish store, and Marcin Paczynski, the senior manager for business development, expressed hope that the debut of this ambitious mod is just the beginning of the adventure.
In an interview for VG247, the Poles mentioned many issues related to the upcoming Fallout 4 mod, mainly repeating the information provided by the creators of this project: about complications with the "nextgen" FO4 update and the promise of transferring the modification to it in the future. They also confirmed compatibility with the Steam version of the game in the case of the Epic Games Store edition, there will be no such version at launch).
Paczynski added that even though the expense of releasing a mod over 40 GB on GOG is substantial, the Polish platform's team was prepared to take that "risk" in the expectation of the community acknowledging their effort. He added that players have a way to support the platform without selling the mod for money: all they need to do is buy FO4 or other games on GOG.
Test drive for ambitious mods on GOG
At the same time, CD Projekt treats the whole project as a kind of "test drive." If Fallout: London is well-received, it could mean that major (London is expected to be 30-40 GB), ambitious mods will become a significant part of GOG. The platform would allow for easy installation and launch (without the hassle of transferring files), but it would also promote these types of fan projects.
This initiative would fit into the idea of GOG, which is preserving old games. In the end, there's nothing that keeps old hits alive as much as the subsequent modifications do.
Personally, I would very much like that. I know that there are many amazing mods out there that we could help bring to a mainstream audience by creating a one-click-and-run experience where you don’t have to go through a complicated installation process. In addition, I feel that modding communities play a huge role in game preservation and this, in turn, is something we will always be striving to support.
However, at the moment, Poles don't have excessively specific plans. Only after the potential success of Fallout: London, the GOG team could start working on the details of this initiative.
Fallout:London will be released in the coming weeks.