Fallout London Is a 30GB Modification. „If It's an Awful Launch We'll Probably All Just Go to Sleep”
With its size, Fallout London will put many a game to shame. The FOLON team also expressed hope that the ambitious mod won't put them to shame.
Game development isn't an easy business, even in early access, let alone when players have high hopes for a project that's been years in the making. That's why the authors of Fallout London have made it clear: after the mod's premiere, they will either start creating their own games or... they will go to sleep.
Bethesda and game size
The London modification of Fallout 4 is a gigantic project. Suffice it to say that those willing to check out the mod will have to download 30 GB of data. This is quite a substantial amount even for a standalone game (well, most games), especially considering it's a fan-made mod that has been in development for 5 years (partly due to Bethesda). Nearly 100 people worked on the project in total (including volunteers, as the main team usually consisted of about 20-30 people), not counting over a hundred voice actors.
Dean Carter, a lead designer of the FOLON team, confirmed (via Metro Game Central) that work on Fallout London after the release of the "nextgen" update of the fourth installment was a "nightmare." Partly because many elements of this update still don't work as they should.
That's why the decision was ultimately made to release the mod based on the old version of F4 (making it incompatible with game copies purchased on the Epic Games Store and consoles), and then later move the project to the current, modernized (though not necessarily improved) "build" of the fourth Fallout.
Either an indie developer career or sleep
However, the creators can only wait for the release of Fallout London, which is expected to happen within a few weeks, once the GOG.com store finishes the final quality check of the project. Given the scope of the mod, it's hardly surprising that Carter and his team are seriously considering developing their own game, perhaps as an independent studio. Or they will do something based on "YouTube or social media."
Of course, this requires the project to be a success. After all, no one would want to start a career as a game developer with the label of "the developer from that big modification that didn't work out." Therefore, Carter's statement suggests that if the premiere of Fallout London is "awful," then "they will probably all just go to sleep."
It would be understandable for such a reaction to a potential project failure after five years of development and the involvement of so many people. We can only hope that we won't have the opportunity to find out whether Carter would have carried out this "threat."
