This week saw the arrival of Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition, a new Fallout 4 re-release from developer Bethesda Game Studios across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation that bundles together the base game, all of the RPG's DLC, and a curated collection of 150 of its community-made, developer- reviewed Creations that add weapons, armors, quests, and more.
Like 2021's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition before it, this edition of Fallout 4 came out exactly one decade after the original 2015 launch, and was released in celebration of the game's 10-year anniversary. What was supposed to be a slam dunk with this new version of the game, though, has just been, well...slammed.
Since the launch of the Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition on Monday, Fallout 4 has been getting flooded with negative user reviews on Steam, with only 44% of its 4,225 recent reviews (at the time of writing) positive. The rest give Bethesda's open-world RPG a glaring crimson thumbs down — and it doesn't take much reading to figure out why.
Indeed, a quick perusal of the latest Fallout 4 Steam reviews highlight the community's three major problems with the Anniversary Edition: it doesn't include any new content that wasn't already available, it's caused some frustrating performance problems that didn't exist before, and it's forced a game update for everyone that breaks mods.
"Modders built the soul of this game. Bethesda keeps trying to sell it back to us. Fallout 4 was once a sandbox for creativity. Now it’s a treadmill for monetization," writes one frustrated player. "Bethesda’s latest update cycle feels less like support and more like sabotage—breaking mods, forcing updates, and re-selling the same game with a fresh coat of monetized paint."
"Please stop updating games that are 10 years old," grumbled another. "If you are this hard up for cash why not actually create some new content? I for one would love to see another decent DLC. This update is a pathetic joke."
Since the Anniversary Edition doesn't include any content that wasn't already available, it's hard not to feel like its release was rather pointless.
In fairness, not everyone uses mods, so you can make the argument that Bethesda shouldn't avoid updating Fallout 4 just because a portion of its players (albeit a large one) plays with them. But since the Anniversary Edition doesn't include any content that wasn't already available through DLC purchases, the Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition, and/or the Creations Bundle, and doesn't offer it at a lower price, it's hard not to feel like its release was rather pointless.
There have also been widespread reports of bugs and performance issues on PC and gaming handhelds since the update that are affecting vanilla players that don't use any mods at all. One such player that posted a negative review was particularly unlucky, as their game saves were corrupted by the patch.
"The 10th anniversary edition update nonsense broke my old saves. No mods, just vanilla Fallout 4," they explained. "I didn't even purchase the crappy Anniversary Edition, but they still force it on you, just not the content. IT JUST WORKS. Do NOT recommend."
Reviews like the above — as well as harshly blunt ones like "Greed, greed never changes..." and "Bethesda has no fans; it has victims" — highlight that overall, the Fallout community seems to view the Anniversary Edition release as a superfluous, unnecessary update that only serves to break mods, frustrated players with technical issues, and make the developer more money.
Celebrating Fallout 4's anniversary is great and all, but it's hard not to agree with that sentiment. There's nothing in the Anniversary Edition that hasn't been available for Fallout 4 for years now, so what's the point of it? It would be one thing if all the content included was more affordable bundled in the new edition than it would be if you bought it standalone, but it's not. Either way, it adds up to $60.
There's a silver lining in that the update seems to be far more stable for players on Xbox and PlayStation, but ultimately, regardless of platform, there's not really a reason for the update to exist in the first place. Thus, it's frustrating that it came along, broke mod setups, and introduced performance problems. Hopefully affected mods get updated quickly and Bethesda addresses texture bugs and the like with patches soon.
There's nothing in the Anniversary Edition that hasn't been available for Fallout 4 for years now, so what's the point of it? It would be one thing if all the content included was more affordable bundled in the new edition than it would be if you bought it standalone, but it's not.
Something worth noting is that even if you don't own any part of Fallout 4 already, the Anniversary Edition isn't worth it — at least on PC. That's because there are currently deals on the $39.99 Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition and the $19.99 Fallout 4 Creations Bundle that bring the former down to $11.19 at Loaded and the latter to $17.79 at Loaded, respectively.
If you get both, you get all the content the Anniversary Edition gives you but only for $28.98, which is far cheaper than the Anniversary Edition's $59.99 MSRP and less expensive than Loaded's $52.79 deal on it, too.
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