Official ‘Fallout 4’ Mod Tools And Support Not Coming This Year

The mod scene has turned into a major factor behind the success of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series on the PC, and fans can’t wait to get their hands on mods for Fallout 4 with the Xbox One and possible PlayStation 4 being thrown into the mix. Official support for mods won’t happen immediately, however. Bethesda Softworks VP of Marketing, Pete Hines, says the company won’t focus on providing support for mods until next year.

“Our entire focus is on finishing the game,” Hines told IGN. “Nobody cares about mods if the game sucks. This has always been our philosophy. We shift energy to construction tools, the creation kit, and all of that stuff once the game is done, and we start to figure out what all of that is going to look like.”

Hines said that Fallout 4 is “basically done” in a separate interview, as Inquisitr reported. Bethesda Game Studios is not adding additional content or features to the game going forward. Instead, it is focusing on hammering out the game’s myriad number of bugs, polishing the game, and making sure it performs up to expectations with all new weather and lighting systems and the time-eating ability to build communities. This is no small task, and will apparently keep the developer’s focus away from mod tools.

“The idea is that [the tools] will work on all platforms, but the truth is the system doesn’t exist. It’s still being built and worked on and it’s going to take a while. It’s going to take clearly into next year because we can’t even start it…”

Part of the system to support mods includes the recently launched Bethesda.net. This is more of a public relations site right now, but Bethesda’s goal is to turn it into a place where mods can be shared and distributed for Fallout 4, Doom, and other titles. This includes the ability to distribute mods to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

For comparison, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim launched on November 11, 2011, and its official mod tool, the Creation Kit, wasn’t released until February 6, 2012, and came with support for the Steam Workshop. The game was still well-supported through unofficial mods via popular mods sites such as Nexus mods, and is still to this day.

We should fully expect Fallout 4 to receive mods almost immediately after its November 10 release. At least, the PC version of the game will. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One owners will have no choice but to wait for the launch of the official mod tools and distribution system via Bethesda.net.

[Images via Fallout 4]