Fallout 4 Is A Completely New Game If You Change One Setting

2 weeks ago 18

Male Sole Survivor with Dogmeat looking out at Boston at sunset in Fallout 4

Published Feb 20, 2026, 9:56 AM EST

James is a gaming writer from London who has spent thousands of hours exploring titles from every genre. Though he has a particular affinity for multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft, Destiny 2 and League of Legends, he has also put thousands of hours into single-player experiences, from deep RPGs to epic PC strategies. When he's not playing or writing, he can usually be found supporting his beloved Brentford FC.

Fallout 4 is a very good game, and despite some legitimate areas of criticism, it's well worth playing in 2026, even in its unaltered form. That said, there are ways to freshen up the experience if you've explored everything the base game has to offer, and it's definitely something you should explore if you're a fan of the franchise.

The most obvious way of doing that is by downloading mods, and there are plenty available, regardless of your chosen platform. These can do anything from overhaul the setting or main story, to altering the weapons and armor to add realism, immersion and additional animations.

That said, there are various reasons that you may not want to use mods, but there are still ways to vastly alter the gameplay experience, merely by messing around with the options Bethesda gave us in the first place.

Fallout 4's Survival Mode Makes It Feel New Again

The player approaches Boston airport with Dogmeat in Fallout 4 Survival Mode

Added to the game around a year after launch, Fallout 4 comes with a dedicated Survival Mode, that essentially operates as a different difficulty. It actually replaced the original Survival difficulty, which was renamed to Very Hard mode in the in-game settings.

If you've never played Survival Mode before, and you're used to roaming the Wasteland on Normal settings, it really is difficult to overstate just how different the experience is. Almost all saves are disabled and if you want to retain your progress, then you'll need to find a bed and have a sleep.

Fast travel is also gone entirely, so you'll be relying on your legs to get to your favorite points of interest. At the same time, weapons are much more lethal, so you'll deal a lot more damage to enemies but, at the same time, take a lot more, meaning death is likely going to be fairly regular.

This Is One Way To Stay Busy Until Fallout 5

A collapsed train crashes into buildings in Fallout 4 Survival Mode

There are plenty more areas of the game that are changed in Survival Mode, the main one being that you'll have to manage your character much more closely, including eating, drinking and resting with regularity.

Not only is it arguably a much more realistic and immersive way to experience the game, it changes the experience to a point where it actually feels like a whole new release.

From personal experience, I didn't venture into Survival Mode until 2024 (despite consistently playing the game since launch) and it changed the way I look at the game entirely. If you're a Fallout 4 fan and yet to take the leap, give it a go and you might be surprised at how brilliant it can be.