‘Fallout 4’ Mods Won’t Be Available Through Steam Workshop To Accommodate Xbox One, PS4 users

In order to give gamers a better understanding of how user-created mods for Fallout 4 will be delivered to players across all three platforms, Bethesda’s Pete Hines answered a series of community questions on his personal Twitter account over the weekend. Among other topics, Hines briefly explained how bringing mods to the Xbox One and Playstation 4 versions of Fallout 4 will impact the PC edition of the game.

As the Inquisitr reported earlier this month, Bethesda has already confirmed that all PC copies of the game will have to be activated through Steam. This is true even for Fallout 4 units that weren’t directly purchased from Valve’s digital storefront. Even those who pick up a physical version of Fallout 4 will still have to associate the game with an active Steam account in order to play. Furthermore, the disc itself will only contain a portion of the full game, forcing users to still download a majority of Fallout 4‘s data files. This could potentially be an issue for anyone who was hoping to buy a physical copy of the game to help avoid the need for a large initial download.

Despite partnering with Valve, however, it doesn’t look like fans will be able to download mods for Fallout 4 through the Steam Workshop. According a report by Dual Shockers, Bethesda’s vice president of public relations Pete Hines recently hinted that all Fallout 4 mods will be available strictly through Bethesda.net.

@jumpegonzo our plan is to use https://t.co/i9YoZNNklt

— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) October 24, 2015

When Bethesda.net was first launched earlier this summer, the new network was announced as the intended one-stop destination for everything the publisher has to offer. Bethesda is moving their fan community discussions to the new site since it will be replacing both the developer’s official blog as well as become the home of the online forums for the studio’s various titles.

Additionally, Bethesda.net will also house mods for Fallout 4 and other games, such as Elder Scrolls Online, over their newly created network. This is how the developer intends to bring mods to console platforms for the first time with Fallout 4. Since this is the only way that player-built mods will be available to Xbox One and PS4 owners, the statement from Hines simply further illustrates Bethesda’s desire to offer the same content to all Fallout 4 users regardless of what platform they play on.

While gamers will be able to download and enjoy all community mods for Fallout 4, Bethesda confirmed that the creation of mods will still be exclusive to PC. Hines revealed that the official mod tools will only be released for PC editions of Fallout 4. Once a mod has been made using the PC tools, the creator will simply upload the files to Bethesda.net. The content will then eventually be available to download from all three versions of the game.

@cjvaz9900 mods will be playable on consoles. The mod tools will not be released on console. — Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) October 24, 2015

Fallout 4 is set to release next week on the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC. However, fans will have to wait a bit before getting to the chance to play around with user mods since the creation isn’t expected to be available until sometime in 2016.

Fans of Bethesda Game Studios should be familiar to this delay before the launch of official mod tools since the developer has a history of not releasing modding kits for previous titles as well. The same strategy was used with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 3. The delay should give players the opportunity to actually enjoy Fallout 4 as Bethesda intended before deciding alter the game with mods.

Are you excited that mods for Fallout 4 will finally be available on consoles or are you afraid that it might hold back the PC version of the game?

[Images via Fallout 4]